claude-arcade

Play terminal mini-games while Claude thinks.

Hooks into Claude Code so a game launches automatically every time Claude runs a tool — and disappears the moment it's done. Your terminal is fully restored, nothing is lost.

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Install

pipx install claude-arcade

Quick start

# One-time setup — adds hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json
claude-arcade setup

# Use Claude Code as normal
claude

# Bird Hunt launches automatically whenever Claude uses a tool.
# Your terminal is restored when Claude finishes.

Play manually

claude-arcade play          # open the game menu
claude-arcade play bird     # jump straight into Bird Hunt
claude-arcade play pong     # jump straight into Pong

Games

Game	Description	Folder
Bird Hunt	Shoot sprite birds flying across the screen	games/bird/
Pong	Classic paddle battle vs the CPU	games/pong/

More games coming — see Contributing to add your own.

How it works

claude-arcade setup writes three hooks into ~/.claude/settings.json:

Hook	Command	Effect
PreToolUse	claude-arcade start	Launches game on the alternate screen buffer
PostToolUse	claude-arcade stop	Stops game, restores terminal
Stop	claude-arcade stop	Same — catches session end

The game runs on the alternate screen buffer so Claude's output is preserved underneath.

Remove hooks

claude-arcade unsetup

Project structure

src/claude_arcade/
├── cli.py              entry point
├── splash.py           splash screen + game picker menu
├── setup_hooks.py      Claude Code hook management
├── constants.py        shared runtime constants
└── games/
    ├── bird/
    │   ├── game.py     Bird Hunt logic
    │   └── README.md
    └── pong/
        ├── game.py     Pong logic
        └── README.md

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide.

Quick summary — adding a new game:

1. Create src/claude_arcade/games/<name>/
2. Add game.py with a def <name>_game(stdscr) function
3. Add __init__.py exporting it
4. Add README.md for the game
5. Register it in splash.py → GAMES list and cli.py → _game_fn()

That's it — no other files need touching.

Requirements

• macOS or Linux
• Python 3.9+
• Claude Code CLI

License

MIT