OpenAI adds Tamagotchi-style pets to Codex Mac app with custom creation feature
OpenAI added a /pet feature to its Codex Mac app that displays animated companion creatures in the interface. Users can choose from preset options or create custom pets that provide status updates while Codex runs in the background.
OpenAI adds Tamagotchi-style pets to Codex Mac app with custom creation feature
OpenAI added a /pet command to its Codex Mac app that displays animated companion creatures in the user interface. The feature allows users to show or hide playful creatures or create custom designs.
The pets function as status indicators, displaying messages about Codex's background activity. According to the report, they hover in Dynamic Island-style locations on the Mac interface and communicate what the AI coding assistant is doing.
Feature details
Users activate the feature by typing "/pet" in Codex. The implementation includes:
- Preset creature options (goblins notably excluded, according to the source)
- Custom pet creation capability
- Background status messaging through the pet interface
- Positioning near system UI elements like the Dock
The custom creation process reportedly involves responding to prompts within the Codex interface, though specific technical details about the creation workflow were not disclosed.
Product context
Codex is OpenAI's coding assistant application for Mac. The company recently upgraded both ChatGPT and Codex with GPT-5.5, which OpenAI described as "a new class of intelligence for real work."
Previous Codex updates added what OpenAI termed "agentic coding" features that go beyond standard code completion.
What this means
This feature represents an unusual direction for enterprise AI tooling. While most coding assistants focus strictly on productivity metrics, OpenAI is testing whether personality-driven UI elements increase user engagement with developer tools. The implementation suggests OpenAI views Codex as more than a pure utility—the company appears to be exploring whether emotional design elements can drive adoption among developers who might otherwise skip AI coding assistants. Whether animated pets translate to sustained usage or just novelty attention remains to be seen, but the feature costs little to implement and may reduce perceived friction for new users hesitant to try AI coding tools.
Related Articles
OpenAI Cuts GPT-5.6 Prices Up to 80%, Says Model's Own Self-Optimization Work Drove the Savings
OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna pricing by 80% to $0.20/$1.20 per million tokens and GPT-5.6 Terra by 20% to $2/$12, while adding a 2.5x-faster mode for Sol at double the price. The company says GPT-5.6 itself rewrote production inference kernels and tuned its own speculative decoding pipeline to enable the cuts.
OpenAI Slashes GPT-5.6 Luna Pricing by 80%, Cuts Terra by 20%
OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna pricing by 80 percent to $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, while Terra dropped 20 percent to $2/$12. The company attributes the cuts to infrastructure efficiency gains and mounting price competition, particularly from Chinese providers.
OpenAI Cuts GPT-5.6 Terra Price 20%, Luna Price 80% Across API and ChatGPT
OpenAI is cutting API prices for its GPT-5.6 Terra and Luna models by 20% and 80%, respectively, compared to prices set earlier this month. The company says the lower costs are also reflected in usage limits for ChatGPT Work and Codex subscribers, though subscription prices remain unchanged.
OpenAI Report Claims Coding Agents Sped Up Eight Scientific Computing Projects
OpenAI has published a field report documenting eight scientific computing projects that used its Codex coding agent — alone or alongside Anthropic's Claude Code — to reduce software build times. The report is a vendor-authored survey, not an independent study.
Comments
Loading...