Visual indicator for background task requiring user attention (vscode extension)

Open 💬 1 comment Opened May 16, 2026 by danmaz74

What variant of Codex are you using?

IDE Extension (vscode)

What feature would you like to see?

Context

While a background task is running, that's clearly visible from the small "task history" icon at the top right, which spins while tasks are running. But if a background task has finished and is waiting for the user to look at the results, there is no visual indicator - users can only see it if you open the list of tasks; then, the task waiting for the user's review is marked with a small light blue dot.

Spinner while background job is running:

<img width="160" height="61" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3344ef75-77a2-42de-8449-5e7650436f5a" />

No visible indicator when background task has "blue dot" in the list.

<img width="160" height="70" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/afc186e4-715d-4f5c-9497-091f6b3b256c" />

<img width="1486" height="308" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6e21f028-561c-48ad-9300-0c0ee68e8abc" />

Request

Add a small "attention dot" to the task history icon whenever there is a task with a blue dot in the list. Reusing the same blue dot seems like an easy option.

Related issues

This issue is similar to #17646 , but that has been closed as a duplicate of #3962, while the intent is very different. Playing a sound when a task finishes is only useful if you're in front of the computer when that happens. The main use case for this request is alerting the user that there's something requiring their attention even if the user wasn't in front of their computer when the task produced its output.

Additional information

_No response_

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