Petdex

Install and select animated petdex mascots for Hermes.

Skill metadata

Source	Bundled (installed by default)
Path	skills/productivity/petdex
Version	1.0.0
Author	Hermes Agent
License	MIT
Platforms	linux, macos, windows
Tags	petdex, mascot, display, cli, tui, desktop

Reference: full SKILL.md

info

The following is the complete skill definition that Hermes loads when this skill is triggered. This is what the agent sees as instructions when the skill is active.

Petdex Skill

Browse, install, and select animated "pet" mascots from the public petdex gallery. An installed pet reacts to agent activity (idle, running a tool, reviewing, error, done) across the Hermes CLI, TUI, and desktop app. This skill drives the hermes pets CLI and the display.pet config — it does not generate sprites.

When to Use

• The user wants a desktop/terminal mascot or asks about "pets" / petdex.
• The user wants to change, preview, or disable the active pet.
• Diagnosing why a pet isn't showing (terminal graphics support, config).

Prerequisites

• Network access to petdex.dev for the gallery/manifest (read-only, no auth).
• Pillow (a core Hermes dependency) for sprite decoding — already installed.
• For full-fidelity terminal rendering: a graphics-capable terminal (kitty, Ghostty, WezTerm, iTerm2, or sixel). Otherwise a truecolor Unicode half-block fallback is used automatically.

How to Run

Use the terminal tool to run hermes pets <subcommand>.

Quick Reference

Goal	Command
Browse the gallery	hermes pets list (add a substring to filter: hermes pets list cat)
List installed pets	hermes pets list --installed
Install a pet	hermes pets install <slug> (add --select to make it active)
Set the active pet	hermes pets select <slug> (omit slug for a picker)
Resize the pet everywhere	hermes pets scale <factor> (e.g. 0.5, clamped 0.1–3.0)
Preview/animate in terminal	hermes pets show [slug] [--cycle] [--state run]
Disable the pet	hermes pets off
Remove a pet	hermes pets remove <slug>
Diagnose setup	hermes pets doctor

Procedure

1. Find a pet: hermes pets list <query> and note its slug.
2. Install + activate: hermes pets install <slug> --select.
3. Preview it: hermes pets show (Ctrl+C to stop).
4. Confirm setup: hermes pets doctor — shows the resolved pet, configured render mode, detected terminal graphics protocol, and effective mode.

Pets install into <HERMES_HOME>/pets/<slug>/ (profile-aware). Selecting a pet writes display.pet.slug + display.pet.enabled to config.yaml.

Configuration

Under display.pet in config.yaml:

• enabled (bool) — master on/off.
• slug (str) — active pet; empty = first installed.
• render_mode — auto (detect) | kitty | iterm | sixel | unicode | off.
• scale (float) — on-screen size of the native 192×208 frames (default 0.33, clamped 0.1–3.0). One knob resizes every surface; set it with hermes pets scale <factor>, the /pet scale slash command, or the desktop Appearance slider.
• unicode_cols (int) — width in columns for the Unicode fallback.

Pitfalls

• A pet only shows once one is installed AND selected (enabled: true).
• Inside a pipe/redirect (no TTY) terminal rendering is disabled by design.
• The petdex npm CLI installs to ~/.codex/pets; Hermes uses its own profile-scoped <HERMES_HOME>/pets/ instead — install through hermes pets.

Verification

• hermes pets doctor reports ✓ ready when a pet is installed, selected, enabled, and Pillow is importable.