Games with Claudette

While Claude works, or a usage limit holds a task, you can play a game against Claudette: tic-tac-toe, Connect Four, hangman or Minesweeper. The games never touch Claude Code, use no usage and reach nothing outside Claudette. A game left open stays out of the way of everything else.

Start a game

Any of these shows the Games tool window:

Right-click Claudette and choose Play tic-tac-toe, Play Connect Four, Play hangman or Play Minesweeper.
Open the command palette and choose Play tic-tac-toe with Claudette, Play Connect Four with Claudette, Play hangman with Claudette or Play Minesweeper with Claudette.
When a usage limit stops a task, choose Play a game while you wait on the limit bar over the message box (When a limit stops a task).

Now and then, while Claude works or a limit holds the task, one of her tips says Right-click me for a game while you wait. If you’ve hidden her, the palette and the limit bar still work.

One game at a time

There’s one game for the whole app. It follows you from tab to tab, as she does, so the Games tool window shows it whichever tab is in front. Its icon is on the strip only while a game is open.

The game’s name beside the window’s title, such as Hangman ▾, has a menu of the games: choose another to switch to it. A round in progress is dropped, and not counted.
Done playing ends the game, and the window goes.

The games

Tic-tac-toe

You’re ✕ and Claudette is ○. Whoever didn’t start the last round starts the next. The Level menu sets how well she plays:

Easy: she takes a win that’s in front of her, and otherwise plays anywhere.
Normal: she also blocks your wins, and plays her best move half the time. This is the default.
Unbeatable: she never loses.

Connect Four

Seven columns of six. Click a column, or press its number key, to drop a piece in it. Who starts takes turns, as in tic-tac-toe. Your pieces are blue and hers are berry, and the four that win are ringed. The Level menu offers:

Easy: she looks one move ahead, and plays anywhere a third of the time.
Normal: she looks four moves ahead. This is the default.
Hard: she looks six moves ahead.

Hangman

Claudette thinks of a word, three times in four from programming (refactor, compiler, semaphore) and otherwise an everyday one, and tells you which and how many letters. Guess a letter by typing it while the page has focus, or by clicking the letters under the word. Six misses draw the whole figure on the gallows and lose the round, and then she shows you the word. She doesn’t pick a word again until twenty others have come up. Hangman has no levels.

Minesweeper

Claudette hides her mines in a field of nine squares by nine, and you open every square without one. She hides them as you open the first square, never in it or next to it, so it always opens onto some room. A number on an open square says how many mines touch it; a square with none around it opens those around it too.

Click a square to open it. Open one of her mines and she wins, and shows you where the rest were; a flag where there was no mine is crossed out.
Right-click a square, or press F on the one with the focus, to flag it, and again to take the flag away. Over the field it says how many mines are left to flag.
Click a number that has as many flags around it as mines to open the rest of the squares around it at once. A flag in the wrong place opens a mine.

Open every square without a mine and you win. The Level menu sets how many mines she hides: Easy 10, Normal 13 (the default) or Hard 16. Changing it starts a new field.

Her turn

She thinks for about a second before each move, with a “?” over her head on the message box. She reacts as she does to the tab (Claudette on the composer): confetti when she wins, dizzy when she loses, a hop at a draw. She wipes her brow when she blocks a move that would have won, when you’re down to your last miss, or when you have one square left to open in Minesweeper. Your moves keep her awake.

While motion is reduced, or she’s hidden, she still plays. She just doesn’t react on the message box.

The score

Each game keeps its own score, such as You 3 · Claudette 2 · Draws 1, and its own level, on this computer and across restarts. Reset score sets a game’s score back to nothing.

During a round, New game drops it without counting it. When a round ends, Play again starts the next.

When Claude needs you

A game never moves or hides anything. While a tab waits on you, a line over the board says so: Claude needs you in auth refactor, or Claude needs you in 2 tabs, with Go there, which goes to the next one. In the tab that’s waiting, it says Claude is waiting for you in this tab. Her waving, the badge and notifications carry on as usual.

Keyboard and screen readers

Each square, column and letter is a button with a name, such as Top left, empty, Column 3, 2 of 6 filled, Letter E and Row 2, column 5, 1 mine around. While the Games page has focus, the number keys play tic-tac-toe’s squares (1 to 9, from the top left) and Connect Four’s columns (1 to 7), and the letters guess in hangman. In Minesweeper, the arrow keys move between the squares, Space or Enter opens the one with the focus and F flags it. None of it reaches the message box. Her moves and every result are read out, such as Claudette took the middle.

Settings

Setting	Default	Where
Games with Claudette	On	Settings → Appearance

Turning it off removes every way in and ends a game that’s open. It works whether or not Show Claudette on the composer is on.

Shortcuts

	Keys
Tic-tac-toe square	`1` to `9`, from the top left
Connect Four column	`1` to `7`
Hangman letter	The letter, while the page has focus
Minesweeper: move between squares	Arrow keys
Minesweeper: open a square	`Space` or `Enter`
Minesweeper: flag a square	`F`