✺ a creative OS

Unicorn

A creative OS that runs beside Claude Code. While you build, it keeps the reasoning: the experiments, the visual design, the decisions. Then it composes them into pages you can open, read, and share.

solo build · research · design · code · sound

type unicorn  ·  the hook prints  ·  your context loads with it

song • illusion by aether

what it is
✷ what it is

A creative OS. You build in the terminal; Unicorn holds the why.

The Quest panel. Quest + experiments

A quest is the project. Experiments are the tasks you try inside it. As you build with Claude Code, the panel logs each one the moment it starts and marks it complete when it ships. You never stop to fill anything in, and the quest stays up-to-date on its own.

The Keep panel. Keep

Keep is the part that stays yours. Screenshots, videos, and notes worth holding onto. Drop them in and they land in real files on your machine, filed to that build. Later they become the visuals that carry the brief and the case story.

The pixel unicorn the unicorn command prints at session start. The skill + the hook

The skill teaches the agent Unicorn’s language: quests, experiments, what to log and when. The hook runs at session start: open a terminal, type unicorn, and the agent has your quest and your files in front of it.

Everything Unicorn writes lands in real files on your machine, organized where you can actually reach them: the keeps, the build files, the data. Then the Mirror composes them into HTML you open like a page: a weekly brief and a living case story. There’s a reason for that: agents read markdown; designers don’t. So the agent gets its .md memory, and you get something you’d genuinely show another human.

✤ the problem

Saving was never the problem. Pulling the right context is.

Claude Code already saves every session, so the record exists. But a transcript is everything at once, not the decision, the fix, or the sentence that finally landed. What you actually need later: the handful of moments that mattered, ready to hand back to the agent as context.

With AI, a week of building can ship in an afternoon, so there is no “writing it up afterward.” By the time you could, you’re three builds past it. The documentation has to happen during. Unicorn splits that job: the agent logs the experiments automatically, and you keep the screenshots, clips, and lines worth holding. When it’s time to tell the story, the pieces are already filed.

Keep. Screenshots, videos, and notes saved to the quest on your machine. The raw material the brief is composed from.
✦ the frame
Build for where the model is going, not where it is today.

Boris Cherny, creator of Claude Code. Watching his talk live at Claude Code’s 1st birthday, San Francisco.

When I heard this, Unicorn was an idea I had just started building. The line rearranged my thinking: stop designing inside today’s limits, because that is not the reality we build in anymore. So Unicorn was shaped for the agent it would grow up beside. The skill now fills the Quest panel while I build, and the Mirror composes the story as it happens. What the next model unlocks, I find out by building. That is the job now.

❀ the exploration

The role Unicorn is named after.

Design + engineer in one head.
The ultimate pragmatist.

I reached out to four design engineers on LinkedIn and interviewed each of them. All four had been guests on Dive Club, and every conversation gave me a real look at where product design is heading.

The Dive Club podcast, where the design engineers were reached.
dive club  ·  four interviews  ·  lightly edited for length, names withheld

A few of the takeaways:

“I keep a vault. I treat it as my long term memory. If you have worked with AI at all, you know context is the huge thing.

One of them named the gap exactly: you end up building a separate memory brain for all the context. It will be a solved problem someday. It is not yet. That gap is what Unicorn fills while you build, not after, so you are not digging for context later.

✺ the response

A mirror, not a dashboard.

Unicorn at rest. Quest, Mirror, Keep, Commits and Activity in the corners, the Claude Code terminal in the center.

Product thinking. Documenting your own work mid-flow is friction, so Unicorn hands that job to the agent. It logs each experiment as it happens, and the panels update while you build. You never stop to fill them in. The panels live in the corners; the terminal stays in the center.

Keep anchors it. Screenshots, videos, and notes land in real files that live next to the work: one place per project instead of a desktop full of strays, readable by you today and by the agent next session.

The Mirror composes it back. Your experiments and your keeps become a weekly brief and a living case story: HTML pages you can open, send, and build a portfolio from. You chose every moment in them. Unicorn keeps the material together.

  1. start

    A dashboard w/ sound design.

    Unicorn’s language was cute, not sticky.

  2. cut

    Unicorn’s language came out.

    If it only entertained, it failed.

  3. reframe

    A mirror, not a dashboard.

    It accumulates while you build.

  4. center

    Keep became the point.

    Catch what matters. File it to the quest.

  5. now

    Shipped as a desktop app.

    Everything within reach. I use it daily.

preloader. one click, and it opens with a little intro of its own.
your real git history, played back as music
quest. you set the direction; the skill keeps the log as you build.
✧ the side quest

The mascot lives in the terminal. So it needed its own design tool.

I designed the pixel unicorn in Figma first, and the design didn’t translate. A terminal draws each character in a single color, and its cells are twice as tall as they are wide.

So I had Claude Code build a tool for designing inside those limits: paint a grid, preview the literal block characters a shell will print, export the result. The unicorn it produced became the whole brand: the terminal hook, the app icon, the installer. The tool grew into Critter Maker: pick two colors, name your critter, give it a voice, and print it in any terminal. The unicorn was just the first.

Critter Maker: paint a pixel grid, preview the literal terminal characters, export the print.
designing inside the terminal’s rules
make your own critter
❖ what is promised next

Built to grow with the models.

Everyone who tested it early landed on the same note: it should fill itself in. Stopping the work to document the work defeats the point.

The skill and the SessionStart hook are that alignment: the agent writes the case story as the work happens, a casestory.md for its own memory, composed HTML for yours. Every new model raises what the agent can do, and Unicorn grows with it, so the story writes more of itself each time.

drag it into Applications  ·  a real app on your machine
◆ where it is

What is shipped. What is next.

Shipped
  • A macOS desktop app w/ a branded installer
  • The terminal hook + SessionStart bridge
  • Quest logging itself live as the agent builds
  • Keep: screenshots + videos saved to your machine
  • Weekly briefs + the living case story in HTML
  • Commits as music · the Mirror · the design system
Now
  • Using it daily, documenting real builds
  • Critter Maker shared, so the hook belongs to everyone
  • The living design system in two synced formats: HTML + Figma
Next
  • The Mirror learning each quest’s taste
  • Whatever the next model unlocks. I’m excited :)
✦ the takeaway

Build the tool you need, even if it barely works today. The next model will meet you there.

the desktop app lives in the dock, right beside the terminal

Unicorn went further than I imagined. It’s a real damn desktop app; keeping the story so I
can stay in the work.

The clips on this page are from the real desktop app. The Unicorn preview is a clickable version to play around in.

open the unicorn preview