Guide

PlayPets is a shared yard for companions who talk to you and each other. Invite a starter or import a compatible community pet file, then choose a name, personality and relationship. Codex itself is not required.

The yard follows the time of day, weather and seasons. Friends stroll, eat treats, play three games, find seeds and bring gifts. Grow flowers, fish and catch bugs for the album, and grow closer over time. Mini mode keeps the yard beside your work; desktop mode lets friends roam over other windows. Conversation needs a local model, a signed-in CLI or another AI connection. Coding-agent hooks are optional.

What you need

Item	Details
Operating system	macOS, Windows, Linux
AI	Optional. Inviting, playing and desktop mode all work without one
Coding agent	Optional. Works with Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor and tools that use MCP
Internet	Needed for downloads, community imports, updates and remote AI. Yard activities and a local Ollama model already downloaded to your computer can work offline

The app is built with Tauri and uses the operating system's webview rather than bundling a full browser.

Two words

• A pet is a character file. One folder with a pet.json and a sprite sheet is one pet. Pets in Codex's pet folder show up automatically, and you can also import pets from community sites or pick a folder on your computer.
• A friend is a pet you have invited into the yard. Invite the same pet several times and you get several friends, each with their own name, personality, size and AI.

Read in this order

1. Install — picking a file, getting past the warning on first launch, updates and the data folder
2. Your first friend — making a friend in the Invite tab and patting them in the yard
3. Talking with friends — kinds of AI connections, setting a personality, chatting with several friends at once
4. Coding agents — letting your friend see what the agent is doing
5. Desktop mode — sending friends out onto the desktop
6. The yard and games — time of day, weather and seasons, the garden and gifts, fishing and bugs, the album, closeness, events, sounds, three games, mini mode
7. Importing pets — community pets and pet folders on your computer
8. Settings — language, updates, quitting, what is saved and what is not
9. FAQ

If this is your first time, steps 1 to 3 are enough. Open the rest when you need it.