Feature proposal: configurable TUI prompt glyph and background
Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Mar 20, 2026 by ggb667 Closed May 2, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
Summary
Add runtime configuration for the TUI prompt glyph and prompt background color.
Why
This makes user prompts:
- visually distinct from system and output text
- easier to identify at a glance
- easier to match with terminal tab/workspace colors in tools like Warp and similar terminals
- more usable across multiple concurrent sessions
This is especially helpful when several Codex sessions are open at once and the user wants prompt surfaces to visually align with terminal color coding.
Proposed Behavior
tui.prompt_glyphcontrols the runtime prompt markertui.prompt_backgroundcontrols the prompt surface background- defaults preserve current behavior when unset
Scope Implemented in My Fork
I already prototyped this in my fork and verified:
- config model and schema support
- runtime prompt glyph replacement in the TUI
- prompt background wired through shared styling
- matching behavior in mirrored
tui_app_serverpaths - tests passing after snapshot updates
Validation Performed
cargo check -p codex-tui -p codex-tui-app-server -p codex-corecargo test -p codex-tui
Prototype Reference
- Branch:
ggb667/codex:feat/tui-configurable-prompt - Commit:
a143db648a48441b38a77d531823d12c44fb219c
Request
If this aligns with the product direction, I would welcome feedback. If useful, I can also provide implementation notes, analysis, or a high-level patch outline from the working fork.
Example Use Case
codex-tui -c tui.prompt_glyph="🎈" -c tui.prompt_background="#FFEEEE"
🎈✶🍎🦋💎⚡🐲 - any unicode symbol or glyph. Right next to data entry makes wrong panel very hard to do by mistake.
Proposed config
[tui]
prompt_glyph = "🎈"
prompt_background = "#FFEEEE"
3 Comments
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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Similiar proposals, but this is a proposan and a tested working implementation. Its simple, parameterizes the correct things and works to visually identify contextes at a glance. Very useful in agenic systems work. I am regularly managing a half dozen or more windows and without distinguishing one can become tired and submit the wrong request to the wrong agent with potentially disasterous results.
This feature request hasn't received enough upvotes, so I'm closing it.