A cat being a cat
Loafing, grooming, rolling, hops, naps, and occasional zoomies. Bob can notice a nearby cursor briefly, then return to his routine.
A little company
for your desktop.
Meet Bob The Cat. A ginger pixel companion who strolls, stretches, naps, and occasionally decides your open windows are a playground.
A native Windows app. Runs offline. No account, installer, or automatic startup.
Windows 10 / 11 · .NET Framework 4.8 · MIT project code
A quiet moment between adventures.
His own routine.
Your everyday workspace.
Bob lives around your work, with tray controls to make him calmer, quieter, or simply stay put.
A little attention goes a long way
Click for a wave and meow. Double-click for a jump and chirp. Drag him to a new spot, or stroke his head and belly with gentle vertical cursor movements.
The desktop is his playground
Bob can perch on windows, hang from an edge, fall and land, bat yarn, and chase a laser dot. He reads window geometry without moving, closing, or recording your windows.
Keep the company.
Set the boundaries.
Right-click Bob or his notification-area icon to choose how he fits into your day.
- Switch between autonomous life, cursor following, and staying here.
- Toggle energetic play, toys, window interactions, and sound.
- Pause him, take a nap, or let clicks pass through his sprite.
- Adjust his size and inactivity delay, bring him nearby, or quit.
Preferences stay on your computer in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BobDesktopPet.
Small companion.
Native engineering.
A Windows application built directly on the platform, with no NuGet dependencies or runtime AI calls.
- C#
- A deterministic behavior engine plans Bob’s routines, movement, cursor curiosity, and toy physics.
- .NET Framework 4.8 + WinForms
- The native Windows host manages the tray menu, preferences, timers, and sound playback.
- Win32 + System.Drawing
- Layered windows render transparent sprites. Window geometry lets Bob perch and climb; toy overlays pass clicks through.
- XML + embedded assets
- Settings stay in LocalAppData. Sprites, icons, and WAV sounds ship inside the executable and work offline.
- PowerShell + GitHub Actions
- Scripts compile with the Windows framework compiler, run deterministic checks, and package a portable ZIP.
The behavior engine is separate from the WinForms host. Deterministic tests cover movement, petting gestures, toy cleanup, window loss, and sound controls. Explore the implementation.
Make room for Bob.
Build from source on Windows, then launch the portable app.
- Get the BobTheCat source repository.
- In the repository folder, run Windows PowerShell:
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\build.ps1 - Double-click
Bob The Cat.exe. KeepBob The Cat.exe.configbeside it.
To make a portable ZIP, run .\scripts\test.ps1, then .\scripts\package.ps1 -SkipBuild. No .NET SDK is required; the build uses the framework compiler installed with Windows.