Vault Pet
A pixel cat that lives at the bottom of your vault, helps you build good note habits and grows every time you write.
Vault Pet turns writing into a cozy little game with a goal you can see. A hand-drawn pixel cat strolls along the bottom of your workspace, pulls out a tiny laptop and types along with you, and levels up from what you put into your notes. Its house has a Home made for working in Obsidian: today's goal, a focus timer with breaks, a to-do list, quests that teach good note habits (links, tags, daily notes, properties, tidying up), a small map of the notes around the one you're in, and your recent notes. Spend the coins on costumes, toys and snacks, collect badges, and watch your cat grow alongside your notes.
Why you'll love it
- A Home for getting things done. Today's goal, a focus timer, a to-do list, today's quests, a note map and your recent notes, all on one screen. Reorder or hide sections with Customize Home, fold any section away, and it reads fine in the narrow right sidebar too.
- It never touches your notes. The to-do list lives inside Vault Pet. Nothing on the Home creates, edits or deletes a note; it only opens notes that already exist.
- Quests that teach Obsidian. Three a day: add a tag, write in your daily note, add a property, link an orphan note, move a note into a folder, open the graph view… Each one has a one-line "how" for first-timers.
- A daily goal you can see. Pick a goal like 300 words (or 1,000 characters) a day. A small bar in the status bar fills as you write, and on days you reach it your cat celebrates and pays you 100 coins. Keep it going for a goal streak.
- Focus sessions with breaks. Start a 15, 25 or 50 minute focus session from the Home, the status bar or the command palette. Your cat stops chatting, shows the time left above its head and cheers when you're done. Then take a 5 or 10 minute break and it calls you back.
- Writing and tasks both count. Characters, links, new notes, writing sessions and every task you check off turn into XP and coins, so a day of to-dos feeds your cat too.
- It keeps you company. While you type, your cat types too. Start a new note and leave it blank, and it raises a little
! and waits for your first line. Write for a while and stop, and it hops with joy.
- It looks after you. Lunch and dinner reminders, a stretch break after two hours of writing, and a gentle "go to bed" when it gets too late.
- It knows when to talk. Small talk waits for your breaks instead of interrupting a sentence, and it remembers what happened: the late night you wrote until 1 AM, the snack it always gets.
- There's a lot to collect. 344 costumes (56 of them endgame star costumes), 36 toys and mini-games, 17 premium dishes, 20 fur colors, 13 ear shapes and 174 badges. All 60 motions are free from the start: pick them per situation or switch them off.
- Neighbors and a treasure workshop. Neighbor friends drop by now and then, your cat finds tiny treasures, and you craft costumes out of them. Not your thing? Turn either one off in Settings, and nothing you've collected is lost.
- It never runs out. Levels stop at Lv.80, and from then on your writing earns stars for a shop of its own.
- It's fair. Only real new writing counts. Deleting and retyping, undo, pasting or dragging text in, and restoring a deleted note earn nothing.
- It's private. Your notes are only read, never stored or sent anywhere. No network access at all.
Home
- Today's goal and focus timer at the top. Pick 15, 25 or 50 minutes and start; when you're done, start a 5 or 10 minute break right there. It shows how many sessions you finished today.
- To-do. Type and press Enter. Check it off and your cat hops; double-click to edit; drag the handle to reorder (or use the arrow keys on it); done ones fold away. Saved inside Vault Pet only (synced with your plugin data), so no notes are created. Finishing to-dos counts for quests and badges.
- Current quests. Three a day (hard, normal, easy), each with a short hint on how to do it. The orphan-note quest lists a few notes with no links so you can open one and link it.
- Note map. A live little graph of the note you have open and the notes up to two links away, moving like Obsidian's graph view: nodes push apart, links pull together, and you can drag a node around and watch the rest follow. Hover a node to light up its neighbors, drag empty space to pan, Ctrl+scroll to zoom. Click a dot to open that note, or jump to Obsidian's Local graph or Graph view. Below it: how many notes, links and orphan notes your vault has.
- Recent notes. The notes you opened last, one click away, and how many you edited today.
- Today's numbers and your cat. Words or characters, links, new notes, finished tasks and your streak, then your level and fullness (with a Feed button).
Daily goal and focus sessions
- Daily goal. Count in words (English and other languages written with spaces) or characters (Korean, Chinese, Japanese). Choose 100, 300, 500 or 1,000 words, 1,667 for a 50K-words-in-a-month challenge, or any number you like. The house home shows a ring, how much is left, the last seven days and your goal streak. Change it from the house, the house settings or Obsidian's plugin settings.
- Focus sessions. Press Focus on the Home, click your cat's name in the status bar → Start a focus session, or run Start focus session from the command palette. Until it ends, your cat stays quiet (Do Not Disturb), a timer floats above its head and the status bar counts down. Finish for 2 coins and 1 XP per minute, then take a 5 or 10 minute break if you like. Stop early and nothing bad happens.
- Fair, as always. The goal counts the same new writing as XP: pasted text and retyped text don't count.
Meet your cat
Your cat lives on the floor of your workspace, just above the status bar. It naps, wanders, chases bugs and grooms itself, and it keeps things calm while you work.
| Action | What happens |
|---|
| Click | Pet it (hearts). Your cursor stays right where it was in your note |
| Rub side to side | It purrs |
| Drag | Pick it up and move it (it dangles, then lands) |
| Double-click | Open the house |
| Right-click | Feed it, give a snack, pull out a toy, quiet mode, hide, reset position |
| Click a speech bubble | Jump straight to the badge, quest or item it's talking about |
Clicks on the empty parts of the floor pass straight through to Obsidian, so your cat never gets in the way.
Moods
| Mood | When | What it does |
|---|
| Writing with you | You're typing | Sits behind a laptop and types along, a thought bubble over its head |
| Waiting | A new note has stayed empty | Raises a ! and waves until you write the first line |
| Watching | You were active in the last 5 minutes | Bounces, looks around, goes for walks |
| Lazing | 5–30 minutes idle | Breathes slowly, stretches, loafs |
| Sleepy | 30–60 minutes idle, or near bedtime | Half-closed eyes, yawns |
| Asleep | An hour or more idle | Curls up into a loaf, Zzz |
| Hungry | Mealtime came and nobody fed it | Stares at an empty bowl, ears down |
How it grows
XP = characters ÷ 10 + links × 10 + new notes × 20 + writing sessions × 30 + finished tasks × 5 + bonuses
Level = √(XP / 25) + 1, up to Lv.80
Stars = after Lv.80, one star for every 2,000 XP (each star also pays 500 coins)
- Characters: new text, not counting spaces, Markdown symbols, URLs or frontmatter. Code counts too.
- Links:
[[wikilinks]], ![[embeds]] and [markdown](links).
- New notes: each note counts once, after its first 10 characters.
- Writing sessions: starting to write again after a break of 30+ minutes.
- Finished tasks: each
- [ ] you check off. Unchecking and checking again only counts once.
- Bonuses: your daily goal (+50 XP), focus sessions (+1 XP a minute), daily quests, badges and your daily check-in streak. Long streaks also pay coins at 30, 50, 100, 200 and 365 days.
- Habits (for quests and badges, not XP on their own): tags, headings, properties, embeds and callouts you add, characters written in your daily note (it follows the core Daily notes folder and date format), notes you move or rename, orphan notes you link, Home to-dos you finish, and Obsidian panes you open (graph, local graph, search, backlinks, outgoing links, outline, tags, bookmarks).
Growth starts on the day you install. Vault Pet takes one quick look at your vault to remember how long each note already is, so writing you did before doesn't count (the welcome screen shows, just for fun, what level you'd be if it did).
Coins and the shop
Everything you write fills your wallet. The first 5,000 characters each day earn 1 coin per 5 characters, and after that 1 coin per 25. Every finished task is 5 coins, reaching your daily goal is 100 and a focus session pays 2 a minute. You also get 1,000 coins as a welcome gift.
| Category | What you get |
|---|
| Meals and snacks | Fill your cat's fullness. It walks over and eats them off the floor. Fullness is a bonus, not a penalty: a hungry cat just asks for food now and then, and still plays. Premium dishes do something extra: keep it full for hours, hide a treasure, tell a fortune or set off a surprise event (with the treasure workshop off: coins and the zoomies instead) |
| Costumes | 288 pieces across head, face, body, back, hand, effect and full sets. Layer one per slot, save up to three outfits |
| Toys | 36 toys and mini-games: balls, yarn, a laser pointer, bubbles, a sunbeam, a fishbowl, a cat wheel, a slot machine, whack-a-cat, find-the-cat, beach ball volley, a paw piano, tug of war, a trampoline… After a long stretch of writing, your cat sometimes brings one over during your break. Click the bubble to play |
| Star shop | 56 endgame costumes (celestial crowns, six-winged angel wings, a cat that becomes the sun…) and 3 animated fur colors (aurora, neon, hologram), bought only with stars |
New items unlock as you level up, all the way to Lv.80. Locked items show a faint preview, so you can see what you're working toward. Motions aren't sold: all 60 are yours from the start (see Settings).
Quests, badges and more
- Three daily quests (hard, normal, easy), all about using Obsidian well: write, add links or tags, write in your daily note, add headings or properties, check off tasks, try an embed or callout, tidy notes into folders, link orphan notes, finish a focus session or a to-do, look around the graph view. Each comes with a one-line hint, and they pay out the moment you finish.
- 174 badges across writing, goals, focus and to-dos, links, new notes, sessions, using Obsidian (tags, tasks, headings, embeds, callouts, daily notes, canvases, the graph, search, backlinks and outline panes) and tidy habits (properties, moving and renaming notes, rescuing orphan notes), plus streaks, daily rhythm, your cat and collecting. Several badges at once arrive as a single bubble.
- Neighbor friends drop by every couple of hours. Trade treasures, share a snack and become best friends, then call them over or gift them workshop costumes.
- Surprise events: your cat might dash off screen and come back with a tiny treasure, or chase a bird across your workspace. Tap a treasure on the floor to pick it up.
- Treasure workshop: craft costumes out of the treasures you find (the same costumes are also in the shop, so buy or craft, whichever you like). The treasure exchange turns spare treasures into the ones you need.
- Neighbors and the workshop can each be turned off in Settings. Turning one off sends a visiting friend home or tucks floor treasures into your box; your treasures, friendships and costumes stay, and it all picks up again when you turn it back on.
- Once a day, your cat asks you something: did you eat lunch, when are you going to bed, are you busy today. Say you're busy and it keeps the small talk to itself for two hours.
Stats and a card to show off
The Stats tab shows what you've written and the coins it earned, a weekday × hour heatmap of when you write best, your cat's household ledger and where your XP came from. Your cat even reads you a warm line at the top.
Make your own show-off card: pick this month, last month or all time, choose up to six stats (characters, links, new notes, sessions, days, longest streak, busiest day, busiest hour, favorite folder, coins, badges, level change, XP, folders), a color, your cat's pose, a one-line caption and a post (4:5) or story (9:16) size. Then save it to your vault, copy the image or copy a ready-made caption. In the first week of each month, the house lets you know last month's card is ready.
Using Hearth? Its Vault Pet card puts your cat, or its whole house, on your Hearth dashboard.
Settings
Open the house (cat face in the ribbon, or double-click the cat; your cat's name in the status bar opens a quick menu) and go to Settings:
- Daily goal: on or off, words or characters, how many a day. Focus session length: 15, 25 or 50 minutes
- Name, size (5 steps), fur color, ear shape (13 shapes, free from the start)
- Theme for the house: Cream, Cocoa, Mint milk, Sakura, Milk choco, or Auto (follows your Obsidian light or dark theme)
- Mute: turns off every sound effect. Also in Obsidian's plugin settings and the command palette
- Language (English, 한국어, 中文). It starts in the language your Obsidian is set to
- Speech bubbles, small talk, occasional Obsidian tips
- Lunch and dinner times, break reminder, when to get sleepy, bedtime, late-night nagging
- Motions for every situation, with a drag-and-drop editor. All motions are unlocked; switch a situation off to skip its motion, and choose whether full-set costumes mix in their own motions
- Folders that count toward growth (untick a folder to leave it out, or open its subfolders to leave out just one, like a planning folder next to your chapters)
- Low power mode: fewer frames and less wandering, to save battery
- Neighbor friends and the treasure workshop (surprise events, treasures, the exchange and crafting): each on or off
- Show or hide the cat on screen, reset its position, see what's new again, start over
Obsidian's own plugin settings for Vault Pet have the everyday switches too: show the cat, open the house in the right sidebar instead of a tab, mute, language, reset position, Send feedback, and the daily goal and focus length.
Commands
Start focus session · Stop focus session · Show today's goal · Open house · Open house in the right sidebar · Show today's quests · Open shop · Open wardrobe · Feed · Pet the cat · Toggle sound (mute) · Toggle quiet mode (1 hour) · Show or hide the cat · Hide the cat for 1 hour · Reset cat position · Stop playing
Installation
Community plugins: in Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Vault Pet and install it.
Manual: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/vault-pet/, then enable Vault Pet under Community plugins.
Optional font: for the exact look, also copy the fonts/ folder (Pretendard, SIL Open Font License) into the same plugin folder. Without it, Vault Pet uses the fonts on your system.
Vault Pet is desktop only, since petting, dragging and right-clicking your cat are a big part of the fun.
Also on your desktop: Kit Commit
Working with Claude Code or Codex too? Kit Commit is the free desktop edition of the same cat for Windows and Mac. Instead of your writing, it turns your AI token usage into XP and coins: it types along while a reply is being written, claps when it's done and waves when your OK is needed. It never reads your conversations. Download it here.
More from the same author
- Vault Orrery: your vault as a 3D galaxy, where every folder is a solar system. Replay how it grew, note by note.
- Class Timetable: a weekly class timetable for students, with each class's lecture notes one click away. Desktop and mobile.
- Tag Graph: a graph view for Bases where tags, folders and properties become hubs. Tag, retag and merge by dragging.
- Download Pulse: download stats for plugin authors: every plugin's downloads, rank and milestones in one dashboard.
Feedback
Vault Pet has no telemetry, so the only way to know what you like, what's broken and what's missing is if you say so.
- A bug or a wish: open an issue. One sentence is enough. The Send feedback button in the house settings takes you to the same place.
- Screenshots of your cat, questions, anything else: Discussions.
Privacy
- Notes are only read. Their contents are never stored, shown elsewhere or sent anywhere. The plugin makes no network requests.
- File and folder paths are never stored as-is. Each part of a path is replaced by a short hash, so your data file can't reveal what's in your vault.
- What is saved: for each note, its longest-ever character and link counts and a few feature counts (kept for a while after you delete a note, so restoring it doesn't count twice); hourly writing totals per top-level folder; and your cat. All of it lives in
.obsidian/plugins/vault-pet/data.json.
- A PNG is only created in your vault when you press Save image on the show-off card.
What Vault Pet accesses, and why
| Access | Why | When |
|---|
| List of notes in your vault | To remember how long each note already is, so writing you did before installing never counts, and to catch up on notes changed while Obsidian was closed | Once on first run, then only notes whose modified time changed. Folders you untick in the settings are skipped |
| Reading notes | To count new characters, links, tags, tasks, headings, embeds, callouts and properties | Only when a note changes. Contents are never stored |
| Links between notes, recent notes, open panes | For the Home note map, the orphan-note quest, recent notes and pane-opening quests and badges, using what Obsidian already knows (its link index, recently opened files, which pane is active) | While Obsidian runs. Only counts are saved, plus short hashes of notes already counted as linked |
| Opening notes and the graph view | Clicking a note on the Home, or the Local graph and Graph view buttons | Only when you click. It opens existing notes and Obsidian's own graph commands; it never creates notes |
| Clipboard (write) | The Copy image and Copy caption buttons on the show-off card | Only when you press one of them |
| Text you paste or drop into a note | So pasted text doesn't turn into XP and coins | Only at the moment you paste or drop it into a note. Only its length is measured; the text is never stored. Vault Pet never reads your clipboard at any other time |
| Plugin data file | Your cat, wallet, badges, hourly writing totals and your Home to-do list | .obsidian/plugins/vault-pet/data.json. The only other thing kept is a device name (next row) |
| Backup of the data file | To bring your cat back if data.json is ever damaged (a crash mid-save, a sync conflict) | Once a day, a copy is written next to it as data.backup.json. A damaged file is kept as data.broken-<time>.json rather than deleted. Before merging changes from another device, this device's copy is kept as data.premerge.json (at most every 10 minutes) |
| A device name | So two devices that sync the same vault merge their progress instead of overwriting each other |
FAQ
I don't write much. I mostly use Obsidian for tasks and daily notes. That works too. Every task you check off is 5 XP and 5 coins, new notes and links count, and you can set a small daily goal (or turn it off).
Does the goal count words or characters? Your choice. English starts with words, Korean and Chinese with characters. Words are counted like Obsidian does: Chinese and Japanese characters count one word each.
Does the Home create notes? No. The to-do list is stored in Vault Pet's own data file, and the note map, recent notes and orphan-note list only read your vault. Clicking a note opens one that already exists; a note that's gone is never re-created.
I bought motions before 2.0. What happened to them? Every motion is free now, so the ones you kept are simply yours. Motions that were retired in 2.0 (they didn't fit writing in Obsidian) were refunded at the price you paid, leftover treasures became coins, and costumes you crafted in the old workshop are still in your wardrobe (they're in the shop now too).
Will old notes level up my cat? No. Growth starts when you install. Adding to an old note later counts, but only the new part.
Can I farm XP by pasting text? No. Text you paste or drag into a note doesn't count. Each note also remembers its longest-ever length, even after you delete it, so retyping, restoring a note from the trash or a sync that re-creates files earns nothing. Notes moved in from a folder you left out start from their current size, and bulk changes are capped.
Does it slow Obsidian down? The cat lives in a lightweight transparent layer that ignores clicks except on the cat itself, and your vault is only read when notes change.
Can I use it on two devices? Yes. If your vault syncs (Obsidian Sync, iCloud, …), Vault Pet merges what each device did instead of letting one overwrite the other: costumes, badges, coins, food and your writing history all carry over. Where the cat sits, low-power mode, do-not-disturb and a running focus session stay per device. Keep Vault Pet up to date on every device, since versions before 1.5.1 don't merge.
My cat disappeared or started over. If the data file was damaged, Vault Pet restores your cat from the daily backup and tells you so. If that didn't happen, look in .obsidian/plugins/vault-pet/ for data.backup.json and please open an issue.
What happens after Lv.80? Your level stays at 80, and every 2,000 XP after that becomes a star (plus 500 coins). Stars buy the endgame costumes and animated fur colors in the star shop.
My cat talks too much. Small talk waits for a pause in your writing and comes at most once an hour. If you close its chatter within two seconds three times in a row, it stays quiet for three hours. You can also turn small talk or all bubbles off in the settings.
中文
Vault Pet 是一只陪你养成 Obsidian 好习惯、随着写作而成长的像素小猫。它待在工作区底部陪你一起打字，你写下的字数、链接和新笔记都会变成经验值和金币。小屋的「主页」专为写作准备：今日目标、带休息的专注计时、待办清单、教你用好 Obsidian 的每日任务（链接、标签、日记、属性、整理笔记、连起孤立笔记）、当前笔记周围的笔记地图和最近的笔记。待办只保存在插件里，主页不会新建或修改任何笔记。344 套装扮、36 种玩具和小游戏、174 枚成就徽章，还有来串门的街坊好友和用宝物做装扮的宝物工坊（都可以在设置里关掉），60 个动作一开始全部免费，可以按情境挑选或关闭。粘贴进来的文字和从回收站恢复的笔记不计数；笔记内容只会被读取统计，不会被保存或发送到任何地方。
- 自带中文界面：猫咪的对话、小屋、商店、成就、设置和命令全部支持简体中文。
- 首次安装时会跟随 Obsidian 的界面语言（中文则自动选中文）。
- 切换语言：设置 → 第三方插件 → Vault Pet → 语言，或在小屋的「设置」页里选择 中文 / English / 한국어。
安装：设置 → 第三方插件 → 浏览 → 搜索 “Vault Pet”
한국어
Vault Pet(볼트 펫) 은 옵시디언 쓰는 습관을 같이 들이고, 글을 쓸수록 자라는 도트 고양이예요. 작업 영역 바닥에서 같이 타이핑하고, 쓴 글자·링크·새 노트가 경험치와 코인이 돼요. 하우스의 홈은 옵시디언으로 일할 때 필요한 것들로 채웠어요: 오늘의 목표, 쉬는 시간까지 이어지는 집중 타이머, 할 일 목록, 옵시디언을 잘 쓰게 돕는 오늘 퀘스트(링크 · 태그 · 데일리 노트 · 속성 · 노트 정리 · 외톨이 노트 잇기), 지금 노트 둘레의 노트 지도, 최근 노트. 할 일은 플러그인 안에만 저장되고, 홈은 노트를 만들거나 고치지 않아요. 코스튬 344개(별로만 사는 끝판왕 코스튬 56개 포함), 장난감·미니게임 36개, 업적 174개, 놀러 오는 동네 친구와 주운 보물로 옷을 만드는 보물 공방(설정에서 끌 수 있어요), 모션 60개는 처음부터 모두 공짜라 상황마다 고르거나 끌 수 있어요. Lv80 다음에는 별이 쌓이고, 기간·칸·색을 골라 나만의 자랑 카드를 만들 수 있어요. 붙여 넣은 글이나 지웠다 되살린 노트는 세지 않고, 노트 내용은 읽기만 할 뿐 어디에도 저장하거나 보내지 않아요. 고양이 언어는 옵시디언 언어 설정을 따라 처음에 정해지고, 하우스 설정에서 바꿀 수 있어요.
Claude Code·Codex 로 일한다면, AI 토큰 사용량을 코인으로 바꿔 주는 데스크톱판 킷커밋(Kit Commit) 도 무료로 받을 수 있어요 (윈도우·맥).
Vault Pet is the Obsidian edition of the Kit Commit desktop pet. An unofficial fan-made project, not affiliated with, made by or endorsed by Anthropic or Obsidian.
MIT License · Pretendard font under the SIL Open Font License 1.1
