{"slug": "show-hn-a-claude-code-plugin-that-plays-a-song-and-shows-a-startup-card", "title": "Show HN: A Claude Code plugin that plays a song and shows a startup card", "summary": "A developer released a Claude Code plugin called startup-song that plays a random 10-second song clip and displays a startup card each time Claude Code launches. The plugin rotates through three genres by default (pop, hip hop, retro hits), pulls a random track from the top 10 iTunes Search API results, and shows a card with coding streak, repo status (branch, changed files, ahead/behind, last commit) and a Wikipedia on-this-day event, using zero tokens since it makes no model call. It installs via `/plugin install startup-song --marketplace heyyviv/claude-boot-beats`, runs only on macOS because playback uses `afplay`, and stays silent on Linux and Windows.", "body_md": "A Claude Code plugin that plays a few seconds of a random song every time you start Claude Code.\n\n- Rotates through genres, one per session: **pop → hip hop → retro hits → pop …**\n- For each one, it searches the [iTunes Search API](https://performance-partners.apple.com/search-api) (free, no key) and plays a random song from the**top 10** results.\n- Shows a startup card above the prompt while it plays:\n  - **Coding streak** : days in a row you've started Claude Code\n  - **Repo status** : branch, changed files, ahead/behind, last commit\n  - **On this day** : one event from[Wikipedia's on-this-day feed](https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/) (grim ones skipped)\n- The card goes away when the song ends. Press **Esc** at an empty prompt to stop it early.`/today` opens the card again.\n- Uses **zero tokens** : no model call, just two web requests, two local`git` commands and an audio clip.\n\nAudio is Apple's official 30-second preview of each track; nothing is downloaded or stored.\n\n```\n/plugin install startup-song --marketplace heyyviv/claude-boot-beats\n```\n\nOr try it from a local copy:\n\n```\nclaude --plugin-dir ./claude-startup-song\n```\n\nChange these in `/config`:\n\n| Setting | Default | What it does | \n|---|---|---|\n| `genres` | `pop, hip hop, retro hits` | Comma-separated search words, used in turn | \n| `seconds` | `10` | How long to play (max 30) | \n\n- macOS (playback uses `afplay` ). On Linux/Windows the plugin stays silent.\n- Internet at startup. Offline, it simply plays nothing.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-a-claude-code-plugin-that-plays-a-song-and-shows-a-startup-card", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/heyyviv/claude-boot-beats", "published_at": "2026-10-22 19:02:06+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-22 19:12:21.280836+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "developer-tools", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Claude Code", "Anthropic", "iTunes Search API", "Apple", "Wikipedia", "startup-song"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-a-claude-code-plugin-that-plays-a-song-and-shows-a-startup-card", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-a-claude-code-plugin-that-plays-a-song-and-shows-a-startup-card.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-a-claude-code-plugin-that-plays-a-song-and-shows-a-startup-card.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-a-claude-code-plugin-that-plays-a-song-and-shows-a-startup-card.jsonld"}}