diff --git a/cat/README.md b/cat/README.md
index 81659c8..1b44fc5 100644
--- a/cat/README.md
+++ b/cat/README.md
@@ -9,12 +9,18 @@ colored to match your theme, or any color you pick.
 | Field | Value |
 | --- | --- |
 | ID | `dotnetrob/cat` |
-| Entries | Bar widget: `cat` |
+| Entries | Bar widget: `cat`; panel: `panel` |
 
 ## Usage
 
 Add the "Cat" widget to any bar from Settings → Bar → Add Widget. Click the
-widget to show a notification with the current CPU percentage.
+widget to toggle a popup panel showing the same cat at panel size — animating
+in step with the bar cat — plus the current CPU percentage; click anywhere
+outside the panel to dismiss it. The panel can also be toggled over IPC:
+
+```sh
+noctalia msg panel-toggle dotnetrob/cat:panel
+```
 
 ## Settings
 
@@ -32,7 +38,9 @@ widget to show a notification with the current CPU percentage.
 
 Every `poll_interval` seconds the widget reads `/proc/stat` to compute CPU
 usage — no other files are read or written, nothing is downloaded, and no
-processes are spawned. The cat's shape comes from a small custom icon font
+processes are spawned. The panel does no sampling of its own: it mirrors the
+bar widget through the plugin's in-process shared state store, so without a
+cat widget in any bar it shows a sleeping cat with no CPU reading. The cat's shape comes from a small custom icon font
 (`fonts/catwalk2.otf`) traced from the MIT-licensed
 [CatWalk](https://store.kde.org/p/2055225) plasmoid by Driglu4it, which lets
 it be recolored like normal bar text instead of a fixed-color image.
diff --git a/cat/cat.luau b/cat/cat.luau
index 72e904e..50413a2 100644
--- a/cat/cat.luau
+++ b/cat/cat.luau
@@ -100,10 +100,27 @@ local function resolveColor()
   return "secondary"
 end
 
+-- The click panel (cat_panel.luau) runs in a separate runtime; it mirrors the
+-- bar cat from this shared-state snapshot, republished whenever the visible
+-- glyph, whole CPU percent, or color changes (so at most once per animation
+-- frame, and only on sample/theme changes while idle).
+local lastPublished = nil
+local function publishState(pace, glyph, color)
+  local cpu = math.floor(cpuPercent)
+  local key = `{glyph}|{cpu}|{color}|{pace}`
+  if key == lastPublished then
+    return
+  end
+  lastPublished = key
+  noctalia.state.set("cat", { glyph = glyph, cpu = cpu, color = color, pace = pace })
+end
+
 local function render(pace)
   local glyph = pace == "idle" and GLYPH_IDLE or RUN_GLYPHS[frameIndex]
   local color = resolveColor()
 
+  publishState(pace, glyph, color)
+
   local children = {
     ui.label({ text = glyph, fontFamily = catFont, baseline = "inkCentered", fontSize = catSize, color = color }),
   }
@@ -144,7 +161,7 @@ function update()
 end
 
 function onClick()
-  noctalia.notify(noctalia.tr("title"), `CPU {math.floor(cpuPercent)}%`)
+  noctalia.togglePanel("dotnetrob/cat:panel")
 end
 
 function onConfigChanged()
diff --git a/cat/cat_panel.luau b/cat/cat_panel.luau
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb05872
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cat/cat_panel.luau
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+--!nonstrict
+-- Cat panel: the popup opened by clicking the bar widget. Shows the same cat
+-- glyph as the bar, just bigger, plus the CPU percentage.
+--
+-- The panel runs in its own Luau runtime, so it can't share locals with
+-- cat.luau. Instead the bar widget publishes { glyph, cpu, color, pace } to
+-- the plugin's shared state store under "cat" whenever any of them change,
+-- and this script re-renders on every update — which is also what keeps the
+-- big cat's run cycle in step with the bar cat, frame for frame. No ticks of
+-- its own: with no widget publishing (state.get returns nil) it just shows
+-- the sleeping cat with no reading.
+
+local catFont = noctalia.loadFont("fonts/catwalk2.otf")
+
+local PANEL_CAT_SIZE = 120
+
+local snapshot = nil
+
+local function render()
+  local glyph = snapshot and snapshot.glyph or "a"
+  local color = snapshot and snapshot.color or "secondary"
+  local cpuText = snapshot and `CPU {snapshot.cpu}%` or "CPU —"
+
+  panel.render(ui.column({ gap = 12, align = "center", padding = 24 }, {
+    ui.label({
+      text = glyph,
+      fontFamily = catFont,
+      baseline = "inkCentered",
+      fontSize = PANEL_CAT_SIZE,
+      color = color,
+    }),
+    ui.label({ text = cpuText, fontSize = 20, color = color }),
+  }))
+end
+
+noctalia.state.watch("cat", function(value)
+  snapshot = value
+  render()
+end)
+
+function onOpen()
+  snapshot = noctalia.state.get("cat")
+  render()
+end
diff --git a/cat/plugin.toml b/cat/plugin.toml
index 59dd8cc..e1aadbc 100644
--- a/cat/plugin.toml
+++ b/cat/plugin.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 id           = "dotnetrob/cat"
 name         = "Cat"
-version      = "1.1.2"
+version      = "1.2.0"
 plugin_api   = 3
 author       = "DotNetRob"
 license      = "MIT"
@@ -9,6 +9,17 @@ icon         = "paw"
 description  = "An animated running cat bar widget whose speed reflects CPU usage."
 tags         = ["bar", "animation", "system", "fun"]
 
+# Popup opened by clicking the bar widget: the same cat, bigger, with the
+# CPU percentage. Attached to the bar near the click; the host default
+# dismiss-on-outside-click makes it behave like a transient popup.
+[[panel]]
+id              = "panel"
+entry           = "cat_panel.luau"
+width           = 280
+height          = 240
+placement       = "attached"
+open_near_click = true
+
 [[widget]]
 id    = "cat"
 entry = "cat.luau"