🫂 CliWaifuTamagotchi

Preview:

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You can turn the avatar to husbando in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/settings.json!

📑 Table of Contents

• ✨ Overview
• 🎬 Launching Process
• 🎨 Customization
• 📂 Project Structure
• ⚙️ Core Scripts
  • main.go
  • utils/app-utils.go
  • utils/commands-utils.go
  • utils/happiness-utils.go
  • utils/palette-handler.go
  • utils/settings-handler.go
  • utils/encouragements-handler.go
  • utils/gifts-handler.go
• 📜 Notes & Error handling
• 🛐 Special thanks

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✨ Overview

CliWaifuTamagotchi is a terminal-based tamagotchi that:

• Renders ASCII expressions and clothes.
• Provides a small set of interactions: Encourage, Gift, Dress Up, Background Mode, Quit.
• Uses a persistent color palette stored in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/palette.json.
• Uses persistent detail settings stored in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/settings.json.
• Customize some of the functions editing words-of-encouragement.txt and gifts.json in the same directory.
• Has minimal UI built using tview and tcell.
• Has Vim-style navigation: Use h, j, k, l keys for intuitive navigation and selection (Must be enabled in settings.json).

No tons of loops - only one function that repeats itself every 5 seconds. Everything handles and updates according to it.

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🎬 Launching Process

Brew (macOS)

1. Install

bash brew install HenryLoM/CliWaifuTamagotchi/cliwt

1. Run

bash cliwt

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AUR (Arch)

1. Install

bash yay -S cliwt or bash paru -S cliwt

1. Run

bash cliwt

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Git (Source code)

1. Clone repository

bash git clone https://github.com/HenryLoM/CliWaifuTamagotchi.git cd CliWaifuTamagotchi

1. Build app yourself, then run

bash go build -o cliwt ./cliwt

• Or run directly for development

bash go run main.go

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💡 Notes

• First run creates ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/ directory and palette.json, settings.json files in it on its own if missing.
• On macOS, ensure your terminal supports true color for best rendering.

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🎨 Customization

1. Palette

JSON file is in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/ ; Named palette.json

JSON file's structure:

{
  "background": "#1e1e2e",
  "foreground": "#cdd6f4",
  "border": "#cba6f7",
  "accent": "#eba0ac",
  "title": "#b4befe"
}

Note: default palette is Catppuchin (Mocha).

1. Settings

JSON file is in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/ ; Named settings.json

JSON file's structure:

{
  "name": "Waifu",
  "defaultMessage": "...",
  "vimNavigation": false,
  "avatarType": "waifu",
  "keys": {
    "encourage": "l",
    "dressup": "2",
    "backgroundMode": "b",
    "quit": "q"
  }
}

Note: try to avoid key overrides when using "vimNavigation": true.

1. Words of encouragement

TXT file is in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/ ; Named words-of-encouragement.txt

Note: It's extensible!

1. Gifts

JSON file is in ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/ ; Named gifts.json

Note: It's extensible!

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📂 Project Structure

CliWaifuTamagotchi/
│
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
├── .gitignore
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
├── main.go                             # Main file that launches the project
│
├── screenshots/
│   ├── result.gif
│   ├── reactions.jpg
│   └── husbando-preview.jpg
│
└── utils/
    │
    ├── ascii-arts/
    │   │
    │   ├── waifu/                      # Arts for waifu avatar
    │   │   ├── clothes/...             # ASCII bodies
    │   │   └── expressions/...         # ASCII heads
    │   │
    │   └── husbando/...                # Arts for husbando avatar
    │       ├── clothes/...             # ASCII bodies
    │       └── expressions/...         # ASCII heads
    │
    ├── assets/
    │   └── words-of-encouragement.txt  # List of lines for Encouragement function
    │
    ├── app-utils.go                    # Main helpers
    ├── commands-utils.go               # Functions for the Action Space
    ├── happiness-utils.go              # Happiness scoring system
    ├── palette-handler.go              # Handling palette out of the file
    ├── settings-handler.go             # Handling settings out of the file
    ├── encouragements-handler.go       # Handling encouragements out of the file
    └── gifts-handler.go                # Handling gifts out of the file

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⚙️ Core Scripts

main.go

• Loads ASCII head, blink frames, and body.
• Displays actions menu: Encourage, Dress Up, Quit.
• Handles user input (keys and navigation).
• Queues UI updates safely using app.QueueUpdateDraw via UIEventsChan that keeps UI changes in order.

utils/app-utils.go

• Helper functions for loading ASCII files.
• Manages UI rendering and widget updates.

utils/commands-utils.go

• Implements interactions logic:

• Encourage: random encouraging phrase + happy frame.

• GiftMenu: choose gifts, apply happiness, show reaction.
• DressUp: swaps body/outfit based on selection.
• BackgroundMode: fills the TUI with Waifu, removing all of the odd elements.
• Manages UI state and async updates via UIEventsChan.
• Caches custotmizable files to reduce disk reads.

utils/happiness-utils.go

• Handles the bar and changes emotions of the avatar.
• Handles the happiness scores.

utils/palette-handler.go

• Loads palette from ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/palette.json.
• Creates default palette if missing.
• Provides color application helpers.

utils/settings-handler.go

• Loads settings from ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/settings.json.
• Creates default settings if missing.

utils/encouragements-handler.go

• Loads settings from ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/words-of-encouragement.txt.
• Restores default encouragements from relative directory if missing.

utils/gifts-handler.go

• Loads settings from ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/gifts.json.
• Restores default gifts if missing.

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📜 Notes & Error handling

Errors:

• See errors you can't explain? Try to remove ~/.config/cliwaifutamagotchi/ directory (you can do a backup). If it worked, it means customization was updated and there was a conflict.
• If error remains, leave the issue, we could solve it together!

Warning:

• Missing/malformed ASCII files may cause a wrong output; handle carefully if modifying assets inside the structure.

Read if you want to contribute:

• The project lives only because there are people who use it. Let's make sure we build it for people, not to earn another achievement for our profiles.
• Keep the code clean and constructive.
• Keep the project PG.
• Keep the Unix philosophy principle: a program should do one thing and do it well.
• The two main goals of the project:
• A TUI that is as customizable as we can make it.
• A tool that is as lightweight as possible, since the project assumes users leave it running in the background.

Future plans you can help with:

• More interactions (feeding, timed events, stats).
• Save selected outfit and preferences.
• Unit tests and error handling improvements.
• Custom separate font support (because a lot of people meet problems with visuals with their fonts).
• Maybe "Pose Mode" - loop animation or specific pose to select and have on the background.
• Maybe separate module handle stderr so Waifu reacts to the errors you get during your work.
• Maybe separate module to use a ChatBot.

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🛐 Special thanks

• sutemo — for the amaazing female & male sprites you can see in the project.
• mininit — for embedding all assets and enabling a clean, pure build process.
• Ali Medhat — for adding Vim-style navigation.
• Isaac Hesslegrave — for implementing Arch Linux support via yay and paru.

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