goblin mode — Discord rich presence for AI coding

Built it the 47th time my Discord said I was "Away" while Claude Code was 30 minutes deep into a refactor.

Every existing Discord-VS Code extension watches your editor cursor. Useless during the long stretches where AI agents are doing the actual work and you're reading diffs. goblin mode watches the terminal + AI session files instead — Discord stays lit while Claude Code (or Cursor / Codex / Gemini / OpenCode) is shipping for you.

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What your Discord card looks like

While Claude is working in your terminal, your Discord shows:

• Top line: Watching goblin mode (activity-type lever — Discord's Watching prefix, not Playing)
• State: rotates between agent-specific (claude is cooking, claude in the kitchen) and generic (AI is building) variants
• Detail: time-of-day flips automatically (morning service, afternoon shift, evening service, 3am goblin shift)
• Timer: ticks while the agent is working — clears when it stops

Lines rotate so friends DMing you see something is happening — not a stale away dot.

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How it knows the AI is working

Three detector tiers, lowest-cost first:

1. Terminal process names — regex match on the active terminal command (^claude, ^codex, ^gemini, ^opencode)
2. Claude Code session files — fs.watch on ~/.claude/projects/*.jsonl for live-session signal
3. Optional companion lockfile — for IDEs / tools that integrate via ~/.claude/agent-mode-discord.lock

Multi-window leadership election (file-lock) so N open VS Code / Cursor windows = one Discord card. Failover under 5 seconds if the leader dies.

Agent support — honest table

Detection is regex-based (src/detectors/regex.ts) — same mechanism for every built-in agent, plus opt-in custom patterns via agentMode.detect.customPatterns.

Agent	Detection	Unit tests	Live-verified
Claude Code	^claude + npx @anthropic-ai/claude-code	126 assertions	✅
Codex	^codex + npx @openai/codex	10 assertions	⚠️ regex only
Gemini	^gemini + npx @google/gemini-cli	5 assertions	⚠️ regex only
OpenCode	^opencode	3 assertions	⚠️ regex only
Cursor agent	terminal-name match	covered by shell-integration tests	⚠️ regex only
Custom	your regex	n/a	bring your own

If you use codex / gemini / opencode and detection misses, file an issue with your terminal-process line — fixing a regex is a 5-minute PR.

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Install

VS Code

Search "goblin mode" in the Extensions sidebar (Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X), or:

ext install leonardomjq.goblin-mode

Cursor / VSCodium / Windsurf

Same — search "goblin mode" in Extensions. Pulls from OpenVSX automatically.

Companion plugin (optional, recommended)

Highest-fidelity AI detection. From this repo's root, in any shell:

claude plugin install ./companion/claude-code-plugin

Or from inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin install ./companion/claude-code-plugin

Detail: companion/claude-code-plugin/README.md.

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Privacy

• Zero outbound HTTP. Discord IPC only — local socket on macOS/Linux, named pipe on Windows. CI-verified by scripts/check-no-network.mjs on every build.
• Hide what you don't want shared. Per-field show / hide / hash controls for workspace name, filename, and git branch.
• Silence specific repos, orgs, hosts, or paths. Glob + regex ignore lists.
• No analytics. No telemetry. No server. Solo project, MIT licensed.

Anything Discord receives is forwarded by your local Discord client, not by this extension. That hop is governed by Discord's privacy policy.

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Configuration

Open Settings → search Agent Mode. Most-used knobs:

Setting	Default	What it does
agentMode.activityType	watching	Discord card prefix. Switch to playing if your client doesn't render Watching.
agentMode.idleBehavior	show	When no AI is active — show rotation copy, or clear the card.
agentMode.privacy.workspaceName	show	show / hide / hash
agentMode.privacy.filename	show	show / hide
agentMode.privacy.gitBranch	show	show / hide
agentMode.animations.enabled	true	Frame-cycling rotation.
agentMode.messages.customPackPath	""	Path to your own JSON copy pack.

Full setting reference lives in package.json under contributes.configuration.

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Troubleshooting

Discord shows nothing

1. Discord desktop is running (not the browser).
2. Discord Settings → Activity Privacy → "Display current activity as a status message" must be ON.
3. Enable agentMode.debug.verbose and check the Agent Mode (Discord) output channel.

Card stuck on old copy after upgrade Cursor's extension cache survives Reload Window. Cmd+Q the app, reopen.

More edge cases: docs/CURSOR-COMPAT.md · docs/MULTI-WINDOW.md · Advanced section below.

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Advanced

How detection works (multi-tier pipeline)

Highest-fidelity tier with an active signal wins.

Tier	Method	Latency	When available
1	Companion plugin lockfile (~/.claude/agent-mode-discord.lock)	<100 ms	Companion plugin installed
2	Shell Integration API (onDidStartTerminalShellExecution)	<500 ms	VS Code 1.93+, shell integration enabled
3	Session-file watch (~/.claude/projects/*.jsonl mtime)	~1 s	Claude Code project directory exists
4	Terminal output polling	~2 s	Always available (fallback)

Goblin pack — actual lines that ship

AGENT_ACTIVE — primary:   AI is cooking · AI in the kitchen · AI is locked in · AI is building
AGENT_ACTIVE — claude:    claude is cooking · claude in the kitchen · claude is locked in · claude is building
AGENT_ACTIVE — codex:     codex is cooking · codex in the kitchen · codex is locked in
CODING:                   claude awaiting input · claude is paused
IDLE:                     claude on standby · claude is resting

Time-of-day modifier (the second card line): 3am goblin shift · morning service · afternoon shift · evening service.

Ship a custom pack: point agentMode.messages.customPackPath at your own JSON file.

Custom Discord Client ID (bus factor)

By default this extension talks to a Discord Application owned by me (Client ID 1493599126217297981). If I lose access to that account, every install goes silent.

Insulate yourself in 2 minutes:

1. Discord Developer Portal → New Application.
2. Copy the Application ID.
3. VS Code Settings → agentMode.clientId → paste.

Also lets you upload custom large/small assets (your own goblin art).

Env-var override for ad-hoc / CI use: AGENT_MODE_CLIENT_ID=your-id-here code .

Comparison vs other Discord presence extensions

Feature	goblin mode	vscord	discord-vscode	RikoAppDev
Terminal AI agent detection	✅ multi-tier	✗	✗	partial (proposed API)
Stable VS Code APIs only	✅	✅	✅	✗ uses (vscode as any).chat
Claude Code companion	✅ lockfile	✗	✗	✗
Multi-agent (claude / codex / gemini / opencode)	✅	✗	✗	partial
Watching activity type default	✅	✗	✗	✗
Bundle size	~220 KB	~2 MB	~1 MB	~500 KB
Privacy controls	show / hide / hash + ignore lists	limited	basic	none
Network requests	none (IPC only)	none	none	unknown

Edge-case troubleshooting (shells, OS specifics)

• Cursor on Windows: Shell Integration is unreliable. Falls back to session-file watch automatically. For best results install the companion plugin.
• fish shell: Confirm VS Code's integration script is loaded — string match -q "$TERM_PROGRAM" vscode should match. If not, source the script in config.fish.
• cmd.exe: Shell Integration not supported. Use PowerShell or the companion plugin.
• Flatpak Discord: IPC socket may not be exposed across the sandbox. Use the .deb / .tar.gz Discord install, or:

  flatpak override --user --filesystem=xdg-run/discord-ipc-*

Observability — what's externally visible (no telemetry shipped)

This extension ships zero telemetry. What's visible elsewhere:

• Discord Developer Portal (private to the maintainer) shows DAU/MAU and activity counts for Client ID 1493599126217297981. Use your own Client ID per "Custom Discord Client ID" above to opt out entirely.
• VS Code Marketplace and OpenVSX show public install counts on the listing pages.

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Contributing

Issues + PRs welcome. File an issue first for anything beyond a typo. All code must pass pnpm test and pnpm typecheck.

License

MIT — 2026 Leonardo Jaques

If goblin mode keeps you out of the AFK pit during AI sessions, ⭐ the repo.