DYK — Did You Know Spinner Facts

Did You Know — Spinner Facts 🧠

Tired of staring at "Flibbertigibbeting…" while Claude Code thinks?

This plugin replaces Claude Code's loading-spinner text with fun, true "Did You Know" facts about a topic you pick. Choose basketball, roman empire, space, anything — and learn something every time you wait.

What problem it solves

Developers stare at the loading spinner dozens of times a day and get nothing back but a random gerund. This turns that dead time into a tiny, voluntary learning loop: pick a topic you love, and every wait becomes a micro-fact.

How it works (the architecture)

Claude Code lets you override the spinner text via the spinnerVerbs key in ~/.claude/settings.json. That array is static — the spinner just picks a random entry per request, so it's free at display time.

The plugin ships a single slash command (/dyk:topic). The command is a prompt, not a script: when you run it, your Claude generates a batch of true, spinner-sized facts about your topic and writes them into spinnerVerbs. No API keys, no servers — it rides on the Claude you already have.

/dyk:topic basketball
        │
        ├─ Claude generates 40 short, true facts (≤ 50 chars each)
        ├─ backs up ~/.claude/settings.json → settings.json.bak
        └─ rewrites only spinnerVerbs.verbs  (everything else preserved)

Install

# Add this repo as a marketplace
claude plugin marketplace add DanielPodolsky/did-you-know-plugin   # GitHub shorthand
# or, for a local copy:
claude plugin marketplace add file:///path/to/did-you-know-plugin

# Install the plugin
claude plugin install dyk

Use

/dyk:topic basketball      # generate & install basketball facts
/dyk:topic roman empire    # switch topics any time
/dyk:topic basketball      # run again to regenerate if it feels repetitive

New facts take effect in a fresh Claude Code session, so restart to see them. Your previous settings are always backed up to ~/.claude/settings.json.bak.

Design decisions

• Facts capped at ~50 characters. The spinner is one short line; longer strings get truncated with "…". The length cap is the single most important rule and is enforced in the command prompt.
• mode: "replace", not "append" — so the spinner shows only your facts, not a mix with the built-in verbs.
• Backup before write. The command never overwrites settings.json without first copying it to .bak.
• Truth over filler. The command is instructed to verify uncertain facts with web search rather than guess.

License

MIT