Hikari Desktop

A Linux desktop application that wraps Claude Code with an anime girl character that reacts to Claude's activities in real-time.

Features

• Visual character that reflects Claude's current state (thinking, typing, searching, coding, etc.)
• Terminal-style output display
• Permission prompts with approve/deny interface
• Real-time state detection from Claude Code's NDJSON stream

Installation

1. Install Claude Code

Hikari Desktop requires Claude Code to be installed and authenticated:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude  # Follow the prompts to authenticate

2. Install Runtime Dependencies

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 libgtk-3-0 libayatana-appindicator3-1 xdg-utils

Fedora:

sudo dnf install webkit2gtk4.1 gtk3 libappindicator-gtk3 xdg-utils

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S webkit2gtk-4.1 gtk3 libappindicator-gtk3 xdg-utils

Package	Purpose
webkit2gtk-4.1	WebView rendering (app UI)
gtk3	Window management and native widgets
libappindicator	System tray support
xdg-utils	Opening URLs/files with default applications

3. Install Hikari Desktop

Download the latest release for your platform.

Linux

AppImage (any distro):

chmod +x hikari-desktop_*.AppImage
./hikari-desktop_*.AppImage

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo dpkg -i hikari-desktop_*.deb

Fedora:

sudo rpm -i hikari-desktop-*.rpm

Windows

The Windows build requires WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) with Claude Code installed inside WSL.

1. Install WSL if you haven't already: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
2. Install Claude Code inside your WSL distribution (see step 1 above)
3. Run the Windows installer (.exe or .msi)

Character States

State	Trigger
Idle	Waiting for user input
Thinking	Processing/API call in progress
Typing	Streaming text output
Searching	Using Read/Glob/Grep tools
Coding	Using Edit/Write tools
MCP	Running MCP tool calls
Permission	Permission prompt needed
Success	Task completed
Error	Error occurred

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js and pnpm
• Rust toolchain

Windows Cross-Compilation (from Linux/WSL)

To build Windows binaries from Linux, install the following:

sudo apt install nsis lld llvm clang

You will also need cargo-xwin:

cargo install cargo-xwin

Build

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Development mode
pnpm run dev

# Build for Linux (AppImage, deb, rpm)
pnpm build:linux

# Build for Windows (exe/msi/nsis)
pnpm build:windows

# Build all platforms
pnpm build:all

Architecture

Linux (Tauri App)
├── Svelte Frontend
│   ├── AnimeGirl (sprites + animations)
│   ├── Terminal (output display)
│   ├── InputBar (user input)
│   └── PermissionModal (approve/deny)
└── Rust Backend
    ├── Process Manager (spawn & communicate)
    └── State Parser (NDJSON → character state)
                │
                │ stdin/stdout (NDJSON stream)
                ▼
claude -p --output-format stream-json --input-format stream-json

Tech Stack

• Tauri 2.x - Desktop framework with Rust backend
• Svelte 5 - Reactive frontend with runes
• Tailwind CSS - Styling
• Tokio - Async runtime for process management

Feedback and Bugs

If you have feedback or a bug report, please feel free to open a ticket request in our Discord!

Contributing

If you would like to contribute to the project, you may create a Pull Request containing your proposed changes and we will review it as soon as we are able! Please review our contributing guidelines first.

Code of Conduct

Before interacting with our community, please read our Code of Conduct.

License

This software is licensed under our global software license.

Copyright held by Naomi Carrigan.

Contact

We may be contacted through our Chat Server or via email at contact@nhcarrigan.com.