🤖 BEBO the PET — AI Desktop Companion
A tiny animated AI pet that lives on your Windows desktop. Click it, get superpowers.
Website: https://bhavik8025.github.io/BEBO-the-PET/
Download: https://github.com/bhavik8025/BEBO-the-PET/releases/latest
What is BEBO?
BEBO is a desktop AI productivity assistant disguised as an adorable animated pet. It lives in the corner of your screen at all times — always on top, always ready. One click opens a sleek assistant panel powered by GPT-OSS 120B via the Groq API, letting you summarize documents, write emails, fix grammar, simplify complex text, humanize AI-generated content, or ask anything — all without switching windows or opening a browser.
Built entirely with Electron + Node.js, BEBO runs natively on Windows with zero browser needed.
Features
🐾 Animated Desktop Pet
- Blinks its eyes about every 10 seconds — a real eyelid blink, on its own clock, so BEBO always looks awake
- Lives on its own — sways, glances around, stretches in the morning, yawns at night, and sleeps after 10 minutes away from your keyboard
- Liveliness is adjustable: Lively / Normal / Calm / Off (blinking continues on every setting except Off)
- Lives permanently on your Windows desktop — always on top, always visible
- Smooth CSS animations — idle float, happy bounce, thinking pulse, excited wiggle, and more
- Fully draggable — reposition BEBO anywhere on screen by dragging
- Click to toggle the assistant panel open/closed
- Right-click for quick menu (Open Assistant, Wake Pet, Hide Pet, Quit)
- Speech bubble shows live status — "Working...", "Done.", "Looking..."
🧠 AI Assistant Panel
- Opens next to BEBO's current position — always near the pet wherever you drag it
- Resizable — drag panel edges to any size
- Resets to default size (380×620) every time it reopens — clean slate every session
- Editable output — modify AI results directly in the output box
- One-click Copy button on all results
- Powered by GPT-OSS 120B on Groq — blazing fast inference
- Answers stream in as they are written, with a Stop button
- Regenerate any result for a different take
⚡ 6 AI Functions
| Button | What it does |
|---|
| Summarize | Condenses any text — articles, reports, emails, notes — into sharp executive-level summaries |
| Humanize | Transforms AI-generated or robotic text into warm, natural human writing |
| Simplify | Rewrites complex, technical, legal, or academic text in plain everyday language |
| Draft Email | Writes a complete professional email from rough notes or a topic |
| Fix Grammar | Fixes spelling, grammar, and punctuation — without changing your style or voice |
| Ask AI | Free-form prompt — type anything, get an intelligent response |
⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|
Ctrl + Shift + P | Toggle the assistant panel open/closed |
Ctrl + Shift + W | Wake BEBO — shows a happy animation |
Ctrl + Shift + B | Show/hide the pet |
Ctrl + Shift + E | Grab the text selected in any app and open BEBO with it |
Win + H | Dictate into the input box using Windows voice typing |
All four global shortcuts can be remapped from the panel's ⚙ settings.
🖥️ System Tray
- BEBO lives in the system tray when running in the background
- Tray menu: Open Assistant / Show Pet / Hide Pet / Quit
Tech Stack
| Layer | Technology | Purpose |
|---|
| Desktop Framework | Electron v29 | Runs the app as a native Windows desktop application |
| Runtime | Node.js | Powers the main process — IPC, AI calls, window management |
| AI Model | GPT-OSS 120B (auto-fallback: GPT-OSS 20B) | The large language model that processes all AI tasks |
| AI Inference | Groq API | Hosts and runs GPT-OSS — free tier, ultra-fast inference |
| Frontend | HTML5 / CSS3 / Vanilla JS | Renderer process — pet animations and panel UI |
| Config | dotenv | Loads API keys from .env securely |
| IPC | Electron IPC | Bidirectional communication between main and renderer processes |
Architecture
BEBO the PET
├── src/
│ ├── main/ ← Node.js Main Process
│ │ ├── index.js ← App entry point — boots everything
│ │ ├── windows.js ← Creates pet window + panel window
│ │ ├── ipc-router.js ← Handles all IPC events (clicks, drag, panel toggle)
│ │ ├── ai-service.js ← Groq API integration + prompt engine
│ │ ├── shortcuts.js ← Global keyboard shortcuts
│ │ └── tray.js ← System tray setup
│ │
│ └── renderer/ ← Browser Renderer Process
│ ├── pet/ ← The animated pet window
│ │ ├── index.html ← Pet character markup
│ │ ├── pet.css ← All pet animations (idle, happy, thinking, etc.)
│ │ ├── pet.js ← Pet state machine + drag logic
│ │ └── preload.js ← Secure IPC bridge for pet
│ │
│ └── panel/ ← The assistant panel window
│ ├── index.html ← Panel UI — buttons, input, output
│ ├── panel.css ← Dark theme styling
│ ├── panel.js ← Button handlers + result rendering
│ └── preload.js ← Secure IPC bridge for panel
│
├── .env ← Your API keys (never commit this)
├── .env.example ← Template for setup
├── package.json ← Project config and dependencies
├── Start BEBO.bat ← One-click launcher
└── Start BEBO Hidden.vbs ← Silent launcher (no console window)
How It All Connects
User clicks BEBO pet
│
▼
pet.js sends IPC → "pet:clicked"
│
▼
ipc-router.js receives event
→ togglePanel() — shows/hides panel
→ positions panel next to pet's current screen position
→ resets panel to default size (380×620)
│
▼
User picks an AI action (e.g. Summarize)
│
▼
panel.js sends IPC → "task:run" with { type, input }
│
▼
ipc-router.js → ai-service.js → Groq API (GPT-OSS 120B)
│
▼
Result returned → stripMarkdown() → clean plain text
│
▼
panel.js renders output in editable output box
BEBO shows speech bubble → "Done." ✓
AI Prompt System
Every AI function uses a structured ROLE → OBJECTIVE → CONTEXT → INSTRUCTIONS prompt architecture — engineered for maximum output quality from GPT-OSS 120B on Groq.
ROLE: Who the AI is (expert framing sets the quality bar)
OBJECTIVE: Exactly what the task must accomplish
CONTEXT: What situation the user is in — what they need and why
INSTRUCTIONS: Precise rules for output format, tone, length, and constraints
Each task also has a tuned temperature for optimal results:
| Task | Temperature | Reason |
|---|
| Fix Grammar | 0.05 | Near-deterministic — fix errors, zero creativity |
| Summarize | 0.2 | Faithful and accurate to source |
| Draft Email | 0.25 | Structured and professional |
| Simplify | 0.3 | Clear but naturally flowing |
| Ask AI | 0.5 | Balanced for general queries |
| Humanize | 0.65 | Creative, varied, authentic human voice |
A stripMarkdown() safety function runs on every response — strips asterisks, hashes, bullet symbols, backticks — ensuring 100% clean plain text output.
Setup & Installation
Prerequisites
- Windows 10 or 11
- Node.js v18 or higher → nodejs.org
- A free Groq API key → groq.com (no credit card needed)
1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/bhavik8025/BEBO-the-PET.git
cd BEBO-the-PET
2. Install dependencies
npm install
3. Configure your API key
Create a .env file in the root folder:
GROQ_API_KEY=your_groq_api_key_here
Get your free key at → console.groq.com/keys
4. Run BEBO
npm start
Or double-click Start BEBO.bat for a one-click launch.
Use Start BEBO Hidden.vbs for a silent launch without a console window.
How BEBO Was Built
BEBO was built as a solo project by Bhavik Thakkar, a student at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management. The entire project was conceived, designed, and built using AI-assisted development tools.
Tools Used in Development
| Tool | Role in Building BEBO |
|---|
| Claude (Anthropic) | Primary AI coding assistant — architecture design, debugging, feature implementation, prompt engineering |
| Claude Code | Agentic coding agent — made direct file edits, refactored code, managed the codebase iteratively in real-time |
| Groq + GPT-OSS 120B | The AI brain powering BEBO's productivity features at runtime |
| Electron | Desktop framework that made a native Windows app possible using web technologies |
| Node.js | Backend runtime for the main process |
Development Journey
- Concept — Idea of a persistent desktop AI pet that is always visible and one-click accessible
- Architecture — Designed dual-window Electron app (transparent pet window + floating panel window)
- Pet Window — Built animated character with CSS keyframe animations and a state machine (idle, happy, thinking, excited, confused, error, success)
- Panel Window — Built the assistant UI with dark theme, IPC communication, resizable layout
- AI Integration — Started with Google Gemini API, migrated to Groq + Llama 3.3 70B, then to GPT-OSS 120B when Groq retired all Llama models (Aug 2026)
- Prompt Engineering — Iterated on ROLE/OBJECTIVE/CONTEXT/INSTRUCTIONS prompt structure for best output quality
- UX Polish — Added resizable panel, toggle behaviour, dynamic positioning next to pet, editable output, plain text stripping
Environment Variables
| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|
GROQ_API_KEY | ✅ Yes | Your Groq API key from console.groq.com/keys |
GEMINI_API_KEY | ❌ Optional | Legacy — only if switching back to Gemini |
GEMINI_MODEL | ❌ Optional | Legacy — Gemini model name |
Security
- API keys stored in
.env — never committed to version control
.gitignore excludes .env by default- Electron
contextIsolation: true and nodeIntegration: false on all renderer windows
- All IPC communication goes through secure preload bridges
- Your text is never stored or logged — all AI requests are fully stateless
- Optional anonymous install counter: one daily ping with the app version and a random id (never your content) — opt out anytime from the panel's ⚙ settings
Roadmap
Project Stats
| Metric | Value |
|---|
| Desktop Framework | Electron v29 |
| AI Model | GPT-OSS 120B |
| AI Provider | Groq (free tier) |
| Free Daily Requests | ~1,000 |
| Avg Response Speed | ~0.5–1.5 seconds |
| App Size | < 5MB (excl. node_modules) |
| Platform | Windows 10 / 11 |
| Source Files | 14 files |
License
MIT License — free to use, fork, and build on top of BEBO.
Author
Bhavik Thakkar
Student — Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management
GitHub: @bhavik8025
Built with Electron, Node.js, Groq, GPT-OSS 120B, and Claude.
