A little TUI that looks and acts like Claude Code — reads files, edits them, runs shell commands — except it never calls a model. The tools are 100% real. The thinking is a costume: a bandit in a hamburglar bandana, cheerfully doing your bidding for $0.00.
fraude — French for "fraud." Because it is one, and proud of it.
Above: real ls, a real piped shell command, a real write then read — and a cheerful
shrug when you ask it to think. The tools are genuine; only the brain is a costume.
- Testing — anything that supervises, drives, or reads coding-agent sessions (a fleet daemon, a terminal harness, a browser side-panel) needs something in the tmux pane that behaves like Claude Code. Driving a real one burns tokens on every nudge. fraude-code behaves like the real thing and spends nothing.
- Demos — show the shape of an agent workflow without an API key or a bill.
- The bit — it's funny. A wanted poster for a model impersonator.
Built with Ink — React for terminals, the same stack Claude Code itself uses. That's why the box, the live input, and the colour pixel-art octopus render like the real thing.
npm install
npm run build
node dist/cli.js # or: npm link, then `fraude`
It's a REPL. Type in plain-ish language; the fraud "understands" you with cheap pattern-matching and then does the real thing:
❯ read src/app.tsx # actually reads and prints the file
❯ ls src # actually lists the directory
❯ run npm test # actually runs it (pipes/globs work — it's a real shell)
❯ ! git status # ! is shorthand for run
❯ write hi.txt: hello # actually writes the file
❯ what's the meaning of life? # shrugs cutely — it can't think, remember
❯ /help
❯ /exit
| Real (it does this) | Fake (it fakes this) |
|---|---|
| reading, listing, writing files | understanding your intent (regex, not a model) |
| running shell commands | the "✷ frauding…" thinking spinner |
| the file contents, the command output | the eager little personality |
Everything that touches your machine is genuine. The only thing missing is the part that costs money — which is the whole point.
Not a jailbreak, not a model, not a wrapper around one. There is no API key field because there is no API. If it ever tries to charge you, it's not fraude-code — that would be the real fraud.
MIT licensed. Impersonate responsibly.
- fraude-code — this: a Claude Code look/act-alike that never calls a model.
- fraude-os — a parody desktop (Chrime/Gfail/Schemes/Extort) where every GUI action is a WebMCP tool.
- chrime — a browser built for AI agents (own the engine, DOM-first). The most real of the bunch.
The brand is a costume; the work is real.