Codex Desktop Windows avatar overlay disappears when main Codex window is hidden or minimized

Environment

• Codex Desktop: Windows Store package
• Version: 26.506.3741.0
• Package: OpenAI.Codex_26.506.3741.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
• Platform: Windows
• Avatar/pet overlay enabled

Related but not identical: #21313 reports that the Windows pet window is not always on top. This report is about the avatar overlay disappearing or becoming inaccessible after the main Codex window is hidden/minimized or briefly hidden behind other windows.

Problem

The Codex Desktop avatar/pet overlay disappears or becomes inaccessible when the main Codex window is hidden/minimized, or when the Codex window is briefly hidden behind other windows.

The avatar overlay appears to be a separate Electron BrowserWindow (avatarOverlay) with persisted open/bounds state, alwaysOnTop, and startup restore. However, after the overlay is hidden or pushed out of visibility by window lifecycle/system behavior, it does not reliably restore itself unless the app is restarted or an external watchdog script forces the overlay window visible/topmost again.

Expected behavior

If the avatar/pet overlay is enabled, it should remain visible independently of the main Codex window, or the app should re-show/recover the overlay when it becomes unexpectedly hidden.

Actual behavior

The avatar/pet overlay can disappear after the main Codex window is hidden/minimized. Restarting or using an external Windows script to call ShowWindow / SetWindowPos(HWND_TOPMOST) can bring it back, which suggests the overlay window still exists but is not being reliably restored by Codex itself.

Local investigation

Local inspection of the installed app shows:

• electron-avatar-overlay-open and electron-avatar-overlay-bounds are persisted in global state.
• The avatar overlay is created as an Electron BrowserWindow with appearance avatarOverlay.
• The overlay uses alwaysOnTop, skipTaskbar, showInactive(), and startup restore logic.
• There does not appear to be a robust recovery path when the overlay becomes hidden after startup.

The installed app is a Microsoft Store package under C:\Program Files\WindowsApps, so modifying app.asar directly is not a practical user workaround because it is update-fragile and package-integrity sensitive.

Workaround

An external PowerShell watchdog can periodically find the small Codex avatar overlay window and call:

• ShowWindowAsync(..., SW_SHOWNOACTIVATE)
• SetWindowPos(..., HWND_TOPMOST, ... SWP_SHOWWINDOW)

This works around the issue, but it should not be necessary.

Requested fix

Please make the avatar overlay lifecycle independent and self-healing on Windows:

• Keep the avatar overlay visible when the main Codex window is hidden/minimized, if the overlay is enabled.
• Re-show/re-topmost the overlay when it is unexpectedly hidden.
• Preserve current persisted open/bounds behavior.