Search OpenPets Codex Pet Registry

Purpose

Anonymously search the OpenPets community registry — the largest catalog of pixel-art "pets" (desktop companions) built for Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, and Pi Code — and return ranked pet metadata plus a universal one-click install link suitable for handoff to the OpenPets macOS app. Read-only. No authentication required. Returns JSON.

When to Use

• A user wants pets matching free-text criteria ("show me cat pets", "find a dragon", "anime girl with a staff").
• A user wants to filter by pet kind: animal, creature, object, or person.
• A user wants the most-popular, most-liked, or newest pets in the registry.
• A user wants a copy-pasteable install link to hand to the OpenPets macOS app (or share with a friend who has it installed).
• A user wants the preview spritesheet / share image URL for a pet to embed in a chat or doc.

Workflow

The OpenPets website exposes a public, paginated REST endpoint at /api/pets that powers the on-page gallery. Always prefer this over scripted browsing — no auth, no rate limits observed, returns the full record set including install-link material in one round trip.

1. Issue a single GET to the search endpoint:

   GET https://openpets.sh/api/pets?q={query}&kind={kind}&sort={sort}&page={n}&pageSize={n}
   Accept: application/json
   

2. Map user criteria to query params:

   Param	Type	Required	Notes
   q	string	no	Full-text search over displayName, description, and tags. URL-encode it.
   kind	enum	no	One of animal, creature, object, person. Any other value returns zero results (total: 0).
   sort	enum	no	One of new (default), popular, liked. Invalid values silently fall back to new.
   page	int	no	1-indexed. Default 1.
   pageSize	int	no	Default ~24. pageSize=100 works; upper bound undocumented.

3. Parse the JSON response. Top-level shape:

   { "page": 1, "pageSize": 24, "total": 239, "totalPages": 10,
     "generatedAt": "2026-05-18T11:13:49.412Z", "pets": [ ... ] }
   

4. For each pet in pets[], extract:

   • id — slug used in URLs (e.g. qwq, apupepe, aobing)
   • displayName, description, kind, ownerName, tags[]
   • viewCount, downloadCount, likeCount
   • previewUrl (relative /api/pets/{id}/preview) — animated WebP preview
   • spritesheetUrl (relative /api/pets/{id}/spritesheet) — full sprite atlas
   • shareImageUrl — 1200×630 OpenGraph card

5. Construct the install link for each pet:

   https://openpets.sh/install/{pet.id}
   

   This URL is public and anonymous. Hitting it returns a 302 with:

   Location: openpets://install?url=<signed-download-url-with-ticket>&id={pet.id}
   

   The signed ticket is a server-issued JWT-style token with a ~24h expiry (exp, nonce, id payload). The OpenPets macOS app intercepts the openpets:// protocol and pulls the bundle. Always hand out the https://openpets.sh/install/{id} URL — never try to construct the openpets:// deep-link yourself (the ticket is server-signed).

6. Optional detail enrichment: GET https://openpets.sh/api/pets/{id} returns { "pet": { ... } } with the same record shape if you need a single record without searching.

7. Return the ranked list with id, displayName, description, kind, ownerName, tags, stats, previewUrl, and installUrl.

Browser fallback

If /api/pets ever becomes unreachable, drive the gallery UI directly. This is strictly slower (lazy-loaded sprites, IntersectionObserver pagination) but the contract is stable:

1. Open https://openpets.sh. Optionally pre-seed query state via URL params (?q=cat&kind=animal&sort=popular) — the gallery script reads them on load.
2. Fill input#q with the search term, set select#sort and select#kind.
3. Click button[type="submit"] inside form#gallery-form.
4. Wait for #gallery-results to populate. Each card is <article class="pet-card"> with a link <a class="pet-card-preview-link" href="/pets/{id}">.
5. Read pet IDs from the href attribute. Construct install URLs as https://openpets.sh/install/{id}.
6. To paginate, scroll #gallery-sentinel into view or click #load-more-pets.

No proxies or stealth required for either path — the site is behind Cloudflare but the API and gallery are CORS-open and bot-tolerant.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• Two response shapes from /api/pets depending on sort order. With sort=new (the default), the response is served from a registry mirror and includes lighter, mirror-flavored fields: installTicketUrl, downloadUrl, validationReport, source.apiBase, mirroredAt, registryNumber. With sort=popular or sort=liked, the response is served live from the primary database and includes richer fields: spritesheetPath, ownerId, ownerHandle, likedByMe, reactionCounts, myReactions, ownerShadowbanned. Both share the core set (id, displayName, description, kind, ownerName, tags, uploadedAt, viewCount, downloadCount, likeCount). Don't depend on the extended fields being present.

• Invalid kind ⇒ empty results; invalid sort ⇒ silent fallback. kind=foo returns total: 0; sort=foo returns the full registry sorted by new. Validate kind against the enum before sending or you'll mislead the user with "0 matches".

• installTicketUrl and downloadUrl in the response require auth. POST /api/pets/{id}/install-ticket returns 404 anonymously, and GET /api/pets/{id}/download returns 401 {"error":"download ticket required"}. Ignore those fields for anonymous flows. The public /install/{id} redirect is the supported anonymous path; it generates the signed ticket server-side and embeds it in the openpets:// Location header.

• /install/{id} requires the OpenPets macOS app to actually resolve. The openpets:// URI scheme is registered by the app from the alterhq/openpets release. Users on Linux/Windows, or macOS without the app, will see "no app to handle this URL". If unsure, prefix the response with a one-liner: "Install OpenPets first, then click the install links."

• Registry has two upstream sources. Pets mirrored from codex-pets.net (the original Codex Pet Share, which OpenPets succeeded) carry a source.apiBase field and mirroredAt timestamp; native OpenPets uploads don't. Useful for de-duping if a user uploads to both registries.

• Catalog size: ~3,500 pets as of May 2026. Default pageSize=24; pageSize=100 is fine. Don't paginate past totalPages — the gallery JS loops back to page 1 in that case, which would loop your scraper.

• Read-only via the API. Liking, favoriting, uploading, commenting all require a Cloudflare Access + Supabase session. Don't promise mutation flows from an anonymous client. For uploads point users to /upload in the OpenPets web app after signin.

• Pet IDs are author-chosen slugs (qwq, aobing, apupepe, ro-job-female-runeknightdragon) — not UUIDs. They're URL-safe but can be long. Don't try to alphabetize them — they aren't ordered.

• No anti-bot wall observed. Cloudflare is configured permissively for the registry: anonymous GET /api/pets, anonymous GET /api/pets/{id}, and anonymous GET /install/{id} all return 200/302 without challenges from datacenter IPs. Browser fallback also works without --verified / --proxies flags, though the metadata in this skill was captured with both enabled as a defensive default.

Expected Output

Recommended return shape per query (one of three outcomes):

A — Successful search (q="cat"):

{
  "query": { "q": "cat", "kind": null, "sort": "new", "page": 1, "pageSize": 24 },
  "total": 239,
  "totalPages": 10,
  "pets": [
    {
      "id": "qwq",
      "displayName": "qwq",
      "description": "Neutral cool white-haired cat-tail pet: aloof outside, warm inside, cute, playful, and subtly enchanting.",
      "kind": "person",
      "ownerName": "taytaya",
      "tags": [],
      "uploadedAt": "2026-05-17T15:06:19.058Z",
      "stats": { "views": 14, "downloads": 0, "likes": 0 },
      "previewUrl": "https://openpets.sh/api/pets/qwq/preview",
      "spritesheetUrl": "https://openpets.sh/api/pets/qwq/spritesheet",
      "shareImageUrl": "https://openpets.sh/api/pets/qwq/share.png",
      "detailUrl": "https://openpets.sh/pets/qwq",
      "installUrl": "https://openpets.sh/install/qwq"
    }
  ]
}

B — Kind-filtered popular search (kind="animal", sort="popular"):

{
  "query": { "q": null, "kind": "animal", "sort": "popular", "page": 1, "pageSize": 2 },
  "total": 2072,
  "totalPages": 1036,
  "pets": [
    {
      "id": "apupepe",
      "displayName": "Pepe",
      "description": "A compact Codex-style green frog pet in a plain blue shirt.",
      "kind": "animal",
      "ownerName": "kegashin",
      "tags": ["cute", "animated", "pixel", "animal", "celeb", "mascot"],
      "stats": { "views": 601, "downloads": 0, "likes": 5 },
      "previewUrl": "https://openpets.sh/api/pets/apupepe/preview",
      "spritesheetUrl": "https://openpets.sh/api/pets/apupepe/spritesheet",
      "detailUrl": "https://openpets.sh/pets/apupepe",
      "installUrl": "https://openpets.sh/install/apupepe"
    }
  ]
}

C — Empty results (no matches):

{
  "query": { "q": "unicornthatdoesnotexist", "kind": null, "sort": "new", "page": 1, "pageSize": 24 },
  "total": 0,
  "totalPages": 0,
  "pets": []
}

For outcome C, surface to the user: "No OpenPets match your criteria. Try a broader term, drop the kind filter, or browse the newest pets at https://openpets.sh."