PawBot – 파일을 먹는 AI 데스크톱 강아지 🐾

DEV Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition Submission 🐕

This is a submission for Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition

What I Built

Remember Neko the cat and those Tamagotchi desktop pets from the 90s? I rebuilt that magic for 2026 — except your pet is a golden retriever puppy powered by an LLM.

PawBot is a Chrome extension + browser demo where a cute pixel puppy:

• 🐕 Roams your screen like a classic desktop pet
• 🏃 Chases your cursor when you get close
• 🍖 Eats anything you drop — PDFs, code files, emoji, pasted text
• 💬 Barks back with short, mood-aware responses via Google Gemini
• 😴 Falls asleep if you ignore it too long (with Zzz particles!)
• ❤️ Reacts to pets — click to pet, double-click to wave

Feed it a .pdf and it might say “Mmm, crunchy homework!” Ignore it for 40 seconds and it curls up with sad puppy eyes.

Demo

Full walkthrough on YouTube:

Quick try locally:

git clone https://github.com/Varshithvhegde/pawbot.git
cd pawbot/web
python3 -m http.server 8080
# → http://localhost:8080

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Or load the Chrome extension: clone the repo → ./scripts/sync-extension.sh → Load unpacked → select the extension/ folder.

Code

Varshithvhegde / pawbot

AI desktop puppy Chrome extension — pixel pet that eats your files and barks with Google Gemini

PawBot 🐾

An AI desktop puppy that lives in your browser. A Tamagotchi/Neko-style pixel pet that roams your screen, chases your cursor, eats files & emoji you drop, and barks mood-aware responses powered by Google Gemini.

Built for the DEV Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition.

Demo

🎬 Watch on YouTube · 📝 DEV submission · 🔗 GitHub

Features

Feature
Description




🐕 Pixel puppy

Full sprite animations — idle, walk, run, eat, sleep, bark, wave


🍖 Feed anything

Drop files, emoji, or paste text — pup chases food then eats it


🏃 Chase mechanics

Food falls from above → pup runs to it → 4-frame eat animation


💬 AI barks

Google Gemini generates short mood-based responses


😴 Sleep mode

Ignore pup 40s → falls asleep with Zzz particles


❤️ Pet & wave

Click to pet, double-click to wave paw


⌨️ Hotkeys


F throw treat · B bark · Esc



…

Repo: github.com/Varshithvhegde/pawbot

How I Built It

Architecture

Browser tab
    │
    ├── Content script (bundled IIFE via esbuild)
    │       └── Shadow DOM canvas overlay (immune to page CSS)
    │
    ├── Pet engine (Canvas 2D state machine)
    │       idle → walk → run → eat → sleep → bark → wave
    │
    ├── Sprite loader (33 AI-generated pixel frames)
    │
    └── Bark engine → Google Gemini API
            mood + hunger + last meal → short bark text

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Technical decisions

Decision Why Vanilla JS + Canvas Zero build step for the web demo; screen-recording friendly Shadow DOM overlay Page CSS can’t hide the pup (learned this the hard way on AI Studio) esbuild bundle Chrome content scripts can’t use ES import — single bundled file fixes it AI sprite sheet Generated pixel art, auto-sliced with a Python script into 33 transparent PNGs Chase-then-eat flow Food drops → pup runs → 4-frame eat animation → crumb particles Fallback barks Works offline without an API key; Gemini enhances when configured

Sprite animations (all 33 frames used!)

State Sprites Idle 4-frame breathing loop Walk / Run Directional left & right sprites Eat 4-frame chew cycle + flying food emoji Sleep Curled up + floating Zzz particles Mood Happy, sad, curious, excited overlays Bark Shows while AI speech bubble is active Wave Paw idle + 3-frame wave on pet/double-click

Controls

Action How Feed Drag & drop file or emoji Feed Paste text/emoji Pet Click the puppy Wave Double-click Throw treat Press F Bark Press B

Live hunger & happiness HUD in the bottom-left corner.

Prize Categories

✅ Best Use of Google AI

PawBot uses Google Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite — not as a chatbot, but as a personality engine for a desktop pet.

Every bark sends real context to Gemini:

Event Context sent to Gemini Example bark Fed a .py file "Just ate: main.py (file)", mood: happy “Python for breakfast? Bold choice.” Ignored 40s+ mood: lonely, ignoredMs: 45000 “…hello? I saved you a spot.” Poked happiness: 85, mood: excited “Hehe! Belly rubs detected!” Hungry hunger: 82/100 “Is that food? IS THAT FOOD?”

Free API key from Google AI Studio → paste in extension popup. Falls back to canned barks if no key is set.

What’s next

• 🔊 ElevenLabs bark sounds
• 🐩 Multiple dog breeds
• 🦊 Firefox extension

Thanks for reading! If PawBot made you smile, leave a 🐾 in the comments.

Built for International Dog Day 🐕 · DEV Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition