Warcraft III Peon Voice Notifications for Claude Code
github.com
github.com
First game that I knew of which had such fun details like that.
* download Warcraft II voices
* tell claude to wire it all up
The age of the WALL-E blobs is upon us!
I feel like anyone preferring Warcraft III is in their 30s. Grew up with the Warcraft II Battle Chest and it was a vibe.
I think it's a case of being better when it came out than another thing was when it came out, despite the other thing being comparatively better without the context of its time.
III has a better and more interesting story telling. But gameplay wise I really like the starcraft 1 system without the heros. I think warcraft 3 adds too much complexity and gimmickry that takes away from fun RTS gameplay.
That said, Warcraft 3 mods were the shit. There were so many fun and inventive modes of play that you could just barely do with starcraft and not at all with warcraft.
It's been a while ...
Were it not so buggy, I think C&C generals ranks pretty high on fun modern RTSes.
PS: I still own the same PS1, tho the reader might not working 100%.
A plea to the various lab engineering teams: please create a json format or whatever that lets me configure this with voices locally. I am a happy user as of late of the Codex app by Open AI. It would be great if I could just give it some JSON somehow and it just works. I suppose skills can do this and I will try that later on. But I think this stuff matters, and it would be nice to have it built in and encouraged.
If you're enough of a fan to want to use these voices, chances are you still have the original installation media (or original bootleg copy) somewhere around the house :).
(This was the HN Post about it -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46850881)
Heck, they even outlined it in the readme
> peon.sh is a Claude Code hook registered for SessionStart, UserPromptSubmit, Stop, and Notification events. On each event it maps to a sound category, picks a random voice line (avoiding repeats), plays it via afplay (macOS) or PowerShell MediaPlayer (WSL2), and updates your Terminal tab title.
Looking at the install script and peon.sh does not raise any over engineering flags for me. It's as simple as the functionally makes it necessary
I get how they got here ; its how claude and codex approach projects, but what does the rest achieve? Your maintenance rituals shouldn't exceed your usecase at this scale.
The fact he added config files to let people create their own package?
Once the novelty wore off, I found it more useful to hear per-project, event-specific messages. On macOS, that looks like this:
{
"Stop": [
{
"hooks": [
{
"type": "command",
"command": "osascript -e 'say \"ProjectX work complete\" volume 0.25' > /dev/null 2>&1 &"
}
]
}
],
"Notification": [
{
"matcher": "permission_prompt",
"hooks": [
{
"type": "command",
"command": "osascript -e 'say \"ProjectX needs help\" volume 0.5' > /dev/null 2>&1 &"
}
]
}
]
}Edit: well that only took me 30 minutes. "Warning: ssh tunnel collapsed. Unable to proceed."
Nice.
100% ai slop repo, be warned if that offends you.
This is as much of a copyright violation as the LLM training process.
Did anyone vote an exemption from copyright if it's for "AI" use?
Not necessarily. This could be considered a quotation of a trivial part of a larger work, making the use legal in the US under its fair use doctrine.
Additionally, I'm not aware of any obvious way that this use could harm the commercial market for Warcraft 3 (and the other games whose voice packs are included in this repository). The use here does not compete with the original, and if anything it might drive sales on the margin through nostalgic reminders.
One good thing about genai is that it will force us to rethink the mess that is copyright
If given the option to vote for this, yes I would absolutely vote for an exemption.
But also, this is clearly "Fair Use" even under our current draconian copyright laws.
I guess that I also don't want to pollute old good memories by associating them with work/Claude
But it's kinda funny to me that you just said "I was going to run this code on my system, until I saw some other code in the same repo, and now I refuse to run it" :D It's all the same repo, you're willing to try part of the code, but not another part of it. Completely arbitrary.
Hmm, why not?
I don't quite get that argument. It's the same as the old download installer from random website, double click to run that people have been doing for decades. It only skips the download step. And it's arguably better since at least you can review the contents. When building a Go program it will also happily download stuff from github but I've seen way less complaints about that. And to be fair it's also been an infection vector, from people installing things from shady places (or reputable places but with ill-intent like installing unwanted browser toolbars, DRM rootkits ...), but it's nothing new. Same advice applies, know what you're doing, use reputable sources.
What's a better alternative ?
> What's a better alternative ?
I do not think the program really needs and installer but if one must then why not just have it under source control that way you get the benefits of git handling all the download bits and the install script being completely offline and just using cp or install commands.
you could tell the user to do this with a pithy command like `git --depth=1 clone $GITSITE/$REPO && $REPO/installer.sh && rm -R $REPO`
One day you run it, it's fine. The next day you run the same command on your machine, it installs malware. No way to tell without inspecting the script every time.
If you download an installer and it's fine, then you can run it again and it's still fine.
---
Also, I'd love to use these sound effects, but I am an rts player and love aoe and wc franchise, these noises just trigger me to want to play too much.
---
Also, also, if you haven't seen AgentCraft, you are missing out -> https://x.com/idosal1/status/2021661861163544818 (worked in one npx command for me using my claude, a+ for creativity and smoothness)
on-notify=exec play /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/complete.oga
I really leaned into coding with agents last year, and after some time, it became evident to me that the vision now being pushed -- the "software factory" -- is where things will eventually end up. Building off that understanding, I began thinking about what interfaces would be necessary and useful for managing code and technology at that scale.
I keep coming back to the idea of a video game-like interface for managing all these agents and fleets of agents. Many of the information affordances in video games are reusable in other scenarios. So even though on the surface this project is 'just' a silly and fun enhancement, I think it’s actually a pretty serious contribution as well.
The idea that using these 24-year old WC3 peon sounds in an open source github project makes one an "AI bro" or even connecting it to AI in general is laughable. There have been thousands of projects on github including this kind of thing long, long before LLMs.
Your anger about big AI and copyright is valid! But it's completely overflowing your common sense, targeting the wrong things indiscriminately. Learn to channel it.
There are few people who seriously recommend less than 25-years of protection.
IIRC this is a different case covered under fair/transformative use. The length of the clip matters, I think it was like <6seconds. There's a lot of videos/livestreams that use similar clips/voiceovers from other games.
This is the reason why there is a distinction between "Declared license" and "Concluded license".
This was my first thought too, thankfully they thought of it!
"Job Done!"
"Work Complete!"
"Are you still touching me?"
Please kill me.
>300 line bash script to hand hold a person who I would assume is capable of using the computer they are downloading a program in source form. 'git clone' followed by 'make install' or go home.
It was trickier than I expected, to get it working well: FFMpeg pipe streaming for low-latency playback, a three-hook injection strategy because the agent forgets instructions mid-turn, mkdir-based locks to queue concurrent voice updates from multiple sessions, and /tmp sentinel files to manage async playback state and prevent infinite loops.
[1] Pocket-TTS: https://github.com/kyutai-labs/pocket-tts
[2] Claude-code voice plugin: https://pchalasani.github.io/claude-code-tools/plugins-detai...
On macOS, in iTerm2, Claude will trigger notifications. I was impressed!
(and also annoyed: I don't like notifications. Then again, I don't have Claude do long things where I can go get a coffee)
Then it's just a simple Claude code hook to play whatever sound: https://github.com/CGamesPlay/dotfiles/blob/0fd07aea4863b581...
It is not perfect, but quite sufficient for simple system messages.
It also lets you manage Claude notifications more gracefully than what you get out of the box with CC. Been lazy about putting the finishing touches on it so this is a good kick in the ass to get that done!
Usage: `~ my-bash-command; notify`
`.wav` snippet: https://gitlab.com/NeroVanbiervliet/linux-config/-/blob/mast...
Session start: "I am a beacon of knowledge blazing out across a black sea of ignorance"
Task finished: "It falls to me to inform you that this one is in the bag"
When a failure occured: "My memory fails me"
I think i would get addicted to work again like in my past playing dota.
I built something in the same space but took a different approach — less fun, more engineering: Vox (https://github.com/rtk-ai/vox) — local TTS in pure Rust, no API key, no cloud dependency.
I used the Tesla autopilot sound along with iterms notification feature which helps get to the waiting terminal if it's buried: https://github.com/gpurkins/waiting-for-claudot
Awesome idea and well realised, love this :)
I never tried playing the WCIII reboot after hearing some pretty bad reviews.
For when user attention is needed, I play a few seconds of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". =D
ENGINEER STOP
Just as was foretold: an actual differentiator is creativity, not coding ability.
Already been done.
Copying what works and doing it cheaper without the cost of having to figure it out is what's profitable.
all systems nominal.
Now I'm still waiting for someone to succeed at a clean-room recreation of Majel Barrett's voice, so we can finally have computers sound like they always should have.
We could've been there a decade ago, but the high-quality audio samples, made officially and specifically with possibility of this use in mind, got trapped somewhere between the estate, producers, and a commercial interest that called dibs, and then procrastinated on the project instead.
Obv no clean room reconstruction but good enough for personal use...
audio files sourced from https://www.trekcore.com/audio/
the inflection and impersonal feel is definitely hard to get right. there are parameters in the elevenlabs API docs to make the voice more stable (= monotonous; see speak.sh in that repo) but still the voice cloner on my $5 plan doesn't really get it right.
nevertheless... i'm still having a lot of fun with this.
edit: if I am forced to rot my brain with the 10x productivity boosting slop gun, at least I'll do it grinning
> pod cleaned up. waiting on the behemoth to finish grinding through Italy.
< if only postgres had progress indicators
... then they coulda called it progresql
> lmaooo
> Bash(~/speak.sh "Joke detected. Humor subroutine engaged. Ha. Ha. Ha.")“Director John Badham states in the commentary that the actor voicing the raw content that was later modified for the computerized effect was John Wood (the Falken character), reading the script word-for-word in reverse order in order to portray a "flat quality" with limited inflection. That raw audio was then edited and re-assembled after being run through audio processing equipment to achieve the desired effect.”
> Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper.
... at least, once. Or perhaps exactly once.
Hello "This is a triumph!"
* I don't think she had a full name at that point?
downloads other scripts (peon.sh, uninstall.sh) and executes them or places them where they will be executed later
edits your ~/.bashrc and ~/.zshrc files to add aliases and tab completion
parses a remote JSON file to get filenames ($sfile) and then does: curl ... -o "$INSTALL_DIR/packs/$pack/sounds/$sfile"
I wouldn't use this repo outside of some kind of sandbox.
I haven't played WoW since like 2006-2011 but I will always be Horde for life! Lok'Tar Ogar!
Otherwise totally fun idea!
I already had built a hook with desktop notification and window highlighting myself. But I have to admit, making it fun like this beats it by a lot.
You can also play "Your soundcard works perfectly" to test the sound output.
The HD remaster is the only official means on Battle.net, but it sucks. I'd recommend just torrenting the original and running in a VM. Plenty of active private servers still out there.
I've made a PR to make it linux compatible if that is usefull to someone else :)
Yes, I know about running CC on android phones or connecting the bot to your github account. But what I really need is to manage CC sessions I started on some random VM from the app.
Claude will ask me to record my voice and make a sound pack out of it.
I look forward to recording such phrases as "More quota please" and "I apologize for the safety violation in my last input".