RangerHQ Buddy Wiki

A small virtual companion that lives in your WordPress dashboard. Adopt a Buddy. Watch them blink, bob, and (eventually) react to your site's health.


Latest tag	v0.1.5
wp.org status	Round-2 review at time of writing
Licence	GPL v2 or later
Landing page	https://davidtkeane.com/rangerhq-buddy
Family	Sibling to RangerHQ Radio (WP) and RangerHQ Tuner (Chrome)

What it does today

RangerHQ Buddy is a WordPress plugin that gives every admin user their own tiny virtual pet living in the WP dashboard. Right now (Phase A), Buddy just exists — they bob, they blink, they show a mood, they have four stat bars (hunger / happiness / health / energy). Each WP user gets their own private Buddy stored in wp_usermeta; nothing is shared between accounts and nothing leaves your site.

What makes Buddy different from a hundred WP novelty plugins is the architecture:

Per-user state in wp_usermeta under buddy_state — multi-admin sites work perfectly, no cross-talk
Inline-SVG character renderer with mood tones (happy / neutral / sad / wink) and three sizes (sm / md / lg) — no GIFs, no sprite sheets, no image files for the character
CSS-only animations — bobbing motion and periodic blinking, no JS animation framework
Tier-1 admin discipline carried over from the broader RangerHQ WordPress family

Quick links

Architecture — how the per-user buddy_state storage, the inline-SVG renderer, the dashboard widget hook, and the four admin pages all fit together
Roadmap — the Phase A→F plan (interactions → decay → species → site health integration → Pro tier)
Privacy — what's stored (locally on your site, per-user), what's not
FAQ — common questions
Family — sibling projects in the RangerHQ family

Install

From WordPress.org (when live)

Search for RangerHQ Buddy in Plugins → Add New → Install → Activate. Look for the paw-print icon in your admin sidebar.

Developer mode (right now)

git clone https://git.davidtkeane.com/ranger/rangerhq-buddy.git

Drop the folder into wp-content/plugins/ and activate via the WordPress admin.

Source layout

rangerhq-buddy/
├── buddy.php                   # plugin header + admin-menu + asset enqueue
├── LICENSE                     # GPL v2 or later
├── README.md
├── CHANGELOG.md                # Keep a Changelog format
├── readme.txt                  # wp.org-format readme
├── inc/
│   ├── state.php               # per-user state CRUD (wp_usermeta)
│   ├── sprite.php              # inline-SVG character renderer
│   ├── dashboard-widget.php    # the pet on WP Dashboard
│   ├── admin-page.php          # dedicated "My Buddy" page
│   ├── about.php               # About page
│   └── settings.php            # Settings (rename Buddy)
└── assets/
    └── css/buddy.css           # all visual styling, CSS-only animations

Reporting issues / suggestions

Open an issue or email david@davidtkeane.com.