tanmay-563

PowerShell-first Pokemon terminal art for Windows, VS Code, and npm.

This project started from a shell-based Pokemon colorscript repo and now wraps the same ANSI sprite assets in a small Node.js CLI so it can run cleanly in PowerShell instead of depending on a POSIX shell.

What It Does

The CLI prints prebuilt Pokemon sprites directly in the terminal.

• tanmay shows a random Pokemon
• tanmay pikachu shows a named Pokemon
• tanmay pikachu --size small shows a smaller sprite
• tanmay random 1-3 shows a random Pokemon from generations 1 to 3
• tanmay pikachu --shiny shows the shiny sprite
• tanmay setup --profile vscode makes a Pokemon appear whenever a new VS Code PowerShell terminal opens

The output works because the sprite files already contain ANSI color escape codes. Node just reads those text files and writes them to standard output.

Why This Version Uses Node Instead Of Shell

The original project entrypoint is pokemon-colorscripts.sh, which depends on commands like shuf, sed, cat, and less.

That works well on Linux, but it is not a native Windows or PowerShell experience.

This package uses Node.js because:

• npm can install it globally on Windows
• npm automatically creates command shims for PowerShell
• the same CLI can run inside VS Code terminals
• we can manage PowerShell profile setup without asking users to touch .bashrc

Quick Start

Run It Locally From This Repo

node .\bin\tanmay.js
node .\bin\tanmay.js pikachu
node .\bin\tanmay.js pikachu --size small
node .\bin\tanmay.js random 1-2
node .\bin\tanmay.js pikachu --shiny

Test It As An npm Package On Your Machine

npm install
npm link
tanmay
tanmay --size small
tanmay setup --profile vscode --size small

Notes:

• This package has no runtime dependencies, so npm install is mainly there for a normal npm workflow.
• npm link makes the tanmay command available globally on your local machine for testing.

Publish It Later

npm login
npm publish --access public

Then users can do one of these:

npx tanmay-563

npm install -g tanmay-563
tanmay
tanmay setup --profile vscode

Important:

• npx tanmay-563 runs the package once
• npm install -g tanmay-563 installs the package globally
• npx install tanmay is not the correct npm pattern

Commands

tanmay
tanmay help
tanmay list
tanmay pikachu
tanmay pikachu --size small
tanmay mr. mime
tanmay --name charizard --shiny
tanmay random
tanmay random 1-3
tanmay random 1 3 6
tanmay setup
tanmay setup --profile vscode --size small
tanmay remove --profile vscode

PowerShell Profile Setup

The setup command adds a managed block to a PowerShell profile file.

Example block:

# >>> tanmay-pokemon >>>
if (Get-Command tanmay -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
    tanmay --startup
}
# <<< tanmay-pokemon <<<

Why this is a good pattern:

• the change is explicit
• the change is reversible
• it does not silently modify the terminal on package install
• tanmay remove can safely delete only the block it owns

Supported profile targets:

• auto
• current-host
• vscode
• all-hosts
• both

Recommended for your current goal:

tanmay setup --profile vscode --size small

That targets the VS Code PowerShell profile so Pokemon appear in a smaller size when that terminal opens.

Project Structure

bin/tanmay.js          npm CLI entrypoint
src/cli.js             command parsing, sprite selection, profile management
colorscripts/regular   regular Pokemon ANSI sprite files
colorscripts/shiny     shiny Pokemon ANSI sprite files
nameslist.txt          ordered Pokedex name list used for lookup and generation ranges
generator_scripts/     legacy sprite generation scripts
pokemon-colorscripts.sh legacy shell version kept for reference

How It Works

1. The CLI loads nameslist.txt.
2. It parses the command line arguments.
3. It normalizes Pokemon names like mr. mime into the filename format mr-mime.
4. For random mode, it builds a selection pool from the requested generation ranges.
5. It chooses a Pokemon.
6. It reads the matching text sprite from colorscripts/regular or colorscripts/shiny.
7. If --size small is used, it downsamples the ANSI sprite at runtime.
8. It writes the final ANSI text to the terminal.

There is no image conversion at runtime. The heavy lifting already happened earlier when the sprite files were generated.

Interview-Friendly Design Decisions

• Reused the existing art asset pipeline instead of regenerating sprites.
• Replaced the shell runtime with Node so the package works natively in PowerShell and npm.
• Kept the package dependency-free for clarity and portability.
• Added a managed PowerShell profile block instead of mutating shell startup files implicitly.
• Preserved the original shell script as historical reference instead of deleting upstream work.
• Used explicit generation ranges in code, which also avoids off-by-one mistakes from manual shell indexing.

Legacy Asset Pipeline

The original repo includes the asset-generation scripts:

• generator_scripts/scrape.sh
• generator_scripts/make_art.py

Those scripts were used to download Pokemon sprites and convert them into ANSI-colored text files. The new npm CLI does not need to run them during normal use.

Credits

Original shell project by Phoney badger: https://gitlab.com/phoneybadger

This repo now adds a Windows and PowerShell packaging layer on top of that asset base.