How Pawsby works

1. The cat #

Once you finish setup, the cat lands on the bottom of your screen and starts wandering. It walks the floor of the screen and, by default, along the top edges of your open windows.

Do this	What happens
Click once	You pet it. Mood goes up a little and it reacts.
Double-click	Opens the chat box. This is how you talk to it.
Drag	Picks the cat up. Let go over a window's top edge and it lands there; let go in mid-air and it falls to the floor.
Right-click	Opens the action menu — see §4.
Leave it alone	It walks, sits, and occasionally says something on its own. Its mood drifts with how much you interact.

The click / double-click split is deliberate: a single click is a pat, so you can nudge the cat without a chat box popping up every time.

2. Talking to it #

Double-click the cat, type, press Enter. The reply appears in a speech bubble next to the cat and disappears after a few seconds (you set how long in Settings → Chat). Long replies split across pages — click the bubble's arrow for the next one.

On paid plans it can also search the web, so "will it rain tonight" or "who won last night" gets a current answer rather than a guess. Set your location in Settings → Chat so weather questions don't need a city every time.

The chat box comes in three styles (Settings → Chat → Chat Overlay Style):

• Bubble — a compact input that closes as soon as you send. The default.
• Classic — a small chat window with your message history and quick-reply buttons.
• Transparent — frameless bubbles that stack upward and stay open.

Each message is capped at 2,000 characters. The chat box closes when it loses focus.

3. Slash commands #

Type any of these into the chat box and press Enter. They're handled locally, work on every plan, and don't use a chat from your daily count.

Command	The cat…
/play	plays for a moment, then goes back to what it was doing
/sleep	curls up on a cushion and stays asleep until you pick it up or send another command
/eat	eats
/stretch	stretches
/bored	looks bored for a couple of seconds
/idle or /sit	stops and sits still

Commands are case-insensitive. Anything else you type goes to the AI as normal.

4. Right-click and tray #

Right-click the cat for the same actions as the slash commands — Relax, Play, Sleep, Eat, Stretch, Bored — plus Sit Still / Walk, which toggles whether it wanders at all.

The tray icon (Windows: bottom-right near the clock; macOS: top-right menu bar) has:

• Settings — opens the settings window
• Focus Mode — sends the cat to a corner to sleep so it stays out of your way
• Pause — freezes it in place
• Quit

5. Settings #

Open from the tray icon. Six tabs. In Pet, Chat, Calendar and System, changes apply when you press Save; the Account and Sync tabs apply immediately.

Pet

My Pet

• Name — what it's called. The AI uses this as its own name.
• Appearance — Russian Blue, Abyssinian, British Shorthair, Persian, plus any custom sprites you've imported (§9).
• Personality — Calm, Playful, Logical or Gentle. Sets the tone of every reply.
• Advanced — a free-text box added on top of the personality. "Always answer in one line", "you're a pirate", that sort of thing.

Behavior

• Move Speed — Off / Slow / Normal / Fast. Off means it stays put.
• Pet Size — 0.5× to 2.0×. Drag the slider and the cat resizes live.
• Focus Mode — the same as the tray toggle, plus an optional schedule so it turns on by itself between two times each day.
• Pet Can Walk On — Floor and Windows, or Floor Only if you'd rather it never climbs on your windows.

Chat

About you

• Your Name — how the cat addresses you.
• Your Location — used for weather and local questions.
• Chat Language — Auto (matches whatever you type), or force English, 한국어, 日本語, 中文, Español, Français.

Look

• Chat Overlay Style — Bubble / Classic / Transparent (§2).
• Bubble Duration — how long a reply stays on screen, 3–30 seconds.
• Font Size — 10px to 20px for bubbles and the chat box.
• High Contrast — black-and-white bubbles and chat box.

Quick replies — three one-tap messages shown in Classic style.

History — view, export as JSON or Markdown, or delete your whole chat log. Delete is permanent.

Account

• Plan — your tier, a View Plans button on Free, and a Manage button on a paid plan that opens your billing portal (§10). Also where you restore a subscription on a new computer.
• AI — use the app's built-in AI, or your own API key (§8). Both need a paid plan.
• Usage — how many chats you've used today.
• Danger zone — Delete My Account. Only shown once you've had a subscription; there's nothing to delete on a never-subscribed Free install.

Sync

Cloud sync between your devices — see §7. Grouped as Sync (on/off, status, auto-sync), Devices, and Danger zone (delete cloud data).

Calendar

Connect Google or Outlook and set alert timing — see §6.

System

General

• Launch at Login
• App Language — English, 한국어, 日本語. Changes the whole interface immediately. (Separate from Chat Language, which is what the cat replies in.)
• Theme — Light, Dark, or follow the system.
• Reduce Motion — the cat animates at a very low frame rate and creeps instead of walking, and skips the landing animation on launch.

Updates — automatic check on/off, Check Now, and Install when one is waiting (§11).

About — version, and links to this guide, Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

6. Calendar reminders Standard · Pro #

Settings → Calendar → Connect Google or Connect Outlook. Your browser opens to sign in; when you're done it sends you back to the app.

Once connected, tick Enable Calendar Alerts and pick Alert Before: 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes. Before each event the cat pops up a bubble with the event name, and — if you've allowed notifications — a system notification too.

The cat only sees your upcoming events. It never reads event bodies, attendees, or anything else. Disconnect any time from the same tab.

Windows: if alerts appear in the app but not as notifications, check Settings → System → Notifications → Pawsby is allowed. The app re-checks when you come back to it.

7. Cloud sync Standard · Pro #

Off by default. Turn it on in Settings → Sync → Enable Sync; you'll see a short consent screen first. Then:

• Your chats and settings are encrypted on your device before upload. The server stores ciphertext it cannot read.
• Give each device a Device Name so you can tell them apart.
• Auto-sync toggles for conversations and settings separately; or push a manual sync with the buttons.
• Connected Devices lists every device on your account with a Remove button. Standard syncs 2 devices; Pro has no limit.
• Delete All Cloud Data wipes the server copy. Your local history is untouched.

Sync runs in the background while you work, and again right after your computer wakes from sleep.

8. Your own API key Standard · Pro #

If you'd rather the cat talk to your own AI account, Settings → Account → AI → Use My Own Key (BYOK).

• Provider — OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI or Groq.
• API Key — pasted once, encrypted and stored only on this device. It's sent straight to the provider you chose, never to our servers.
• Model — pre-filled with a sensible default per provider; change it if you like.
• Test confirms the key works before you save.

In BYOK mode your daily chat count doesn't apply — you're paying the provider directly. Web search and calendar still work.

9. Custom sprites Standard · Pro #

Settings → Pet → Appearance → + to import your own sprite sheet. Pawsby reads the Codex pets format as-is — both the original 8×9 sheet (1536×1872) and the newer v2 8×11 sheet (1536×2288), 192×208 cells, PNG or WebP. Browse sheets at codexpets.org and codexpets.net; each sheet belongs to its creator, so check the usage terms where you download it.

Imported sprites show up next to the built-in breeds. Hover one to rename or delete it.

10. Plans and billing #

	Free	Standard	Pro
AI chats per day	3	50	Unlimited
Model	Fast, natural conversation		Smarter, follows long chats
Web search	—	✓	✓
Calendar reminders	—	✓	✓
Cloud sync	—	2 devices	Every device
Your own API key	—	✓	✓
Custom sprites (Codex pet sheets)	—	✓	✓
Walking, commands, four breeds	✓	✓	✓

Prices are on the pricing page. To subscribe: Settings → Account → View Plans. Checkout is handled by Creem, our merchant of record; if you have a promo code, there's an Add discount code link on the checkout page under the subtotal. Checkout asks for a card even when the code makes the total $0 — that's the payment processor, not us; a 100% code means you're never charged.

Manage (Settings → Account) opens your billing portal, where you can see your next charge, change your card, switch between monthly and yearly, or cancel. Cancelling keeps your plan until the end of the period you've paid for, then drops to Free. Your chat history stays on your machine either way.

Moving to a new computer? Install Pawsby, and on the "Welcome back?" step choose I have a subscription. Enter the email you paid with and the one-time code we send, and your plan follows you. If you turned sync on, you can bring your chats and settings across in the same step.

11. Updates #

Pawsby checks for updates on its own (Settings → System to turn that off). When one is waiting, the cat says so in a bubble that stays until you dismiss it — double-click the cat to install and restart, or use the Install Update button in Settings → System.

12. If something's wrong #

• Windows said the installer "isn't commonly downloaded" — that's SmartScreen's reputation check, which every new app trips until enough people have installed it. The installer is signed by IT TEC. Click More info → Run anyway.
• The cat is gone — first check the tray icon: if it says Pause is on, turn it off. If it's still missing (this can happen after unplugging a monitor, because Pawsby remembers where the cat was), toggle Focus Mode on and off from the tray — entering Focus Mode moves the cat to a corner of the screen, which brings it back into view.
• It stopped answering — Settings → Account → Usage shows your daily count. On Free that's 3; it resets at midnight UTC. If you're on a plan and it's the model being slow, it retries once automatically.
• "Reconnect calendar" — the sign-in expired. Settings → Calendar → Disconnect, then Connect again.
• Sync says device limit reached — Standard allows 2. Remove an old device under Connected Devices, or move to Pro.
• Anything else — support@pawsby.app. Say which OS you're on and roughly what you were doing; the app version is in Settings → System.