[macOS][Pet] Semi-transparent gray fog/halo appears around transparent pet after update

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Originally observed on 26.715.21425 (build 5488). The effect became significantly larger after updating to 26.715.31925 (build 5551).

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Free

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

After updating Codex, the desktop pet has a semi-transparent gray fog/halo around it. This is not the solid black transparency failure described in #30158. The pet sprite itself remains transparent; Codex renders an additional gray blurred material around the pet.

Correction to the original report: on 26.715.21425 (build 5488), the effect was already present as a smaller halo following the pet’s outline. After updating to 26.715.31925 (build 5551), it became significantly larger and more visible.

In build 5551, the fog also changes between pet activity states within the same app session:

• Immediately after opening/waking the pet, before submitting a prompt, an oversized diffuse circular gray fog appears behind and around it.
• After submitting a prompt and the pet begins working, the fog shrinks into a thinner halo that follows the pet’s silhouette more closely.
• The pet asset, desktop background, macOS settings, and app session remain unchanged. The reproducible trigger is starting a task.

This suggests that the idle and running states are applying inconsistent fog/material parameters. It is not simply a fixed background contained in the pet asset.

Restarting the pet and fully restarting Codex do not fix it. macOS Reduce Transparency is not enabled, and the custom pet spritesheet has a valid alpha channel.

Screenshots

Immediately after opening/waking the pet, before submitting a prompt - oversized circular fog:

<img width="258" height="268" alt="Idle pet with an oversized circular gray fog" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/dd96dcf8-854c-400c-9df1-ed512d5f0029" />

After submitting a prompt, while the pet is working - smaller silhouette-following halo:

<img width="304" height="280" alt="Running pet with a smaller silhouette-following gray halo" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3766c3ef-05f5-4549-933e-4ecaa88c6a6d" />

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. On macOS, enable a custom v2 desktop pet whose spritesheet contains transparency.
2. Place the pet over a light-colored app or desktop background.
3. Open or wake the pet without starting a task.
4. Observe a large, diffuse circular gray fog around the idle pet.
5. Submit a prompt so that the pet enters the working/running state.
6. Observe that the fog shrinks into a thinner halo following the pet’s silhouette.
7. Restart the pet and Codex. The behavior remains.
8. Compare build 5488 with build 5551. The fog is substantially larger and more visible in build 5551.

What is the expected behavior?

Only the pet sprite should be visible. Transparent pixels in the spritesheet and the surrounding pet overlay should reveal the underlying desktop/app without a gray fog, halo, or shadow.

If a subtle activity effect is intentional, it should remain visually consistent between states and there should be a setting to disable it. It should not expand into a large circular gray cloud when the pet is idle.

Additional information

Related UI change and possible interaction

In the same update, the pet's chat/activity bubble was also visually redesigned. It now has a translucent, glass-like appearance with blur and shadow instead of the previous opaque white rounded bubble. This visual change appeared at the same time as the gray pet fog.

Because the fog changes when a prompt is submitted and the activity/notification UI changes state, there may be an interaction between the notification stack/bubble presentation and the pet fog/material geometry. One possibility is that the bubble or container presentation is reconfiguring or extending the pet effect surface. This is only a hypothesis; I have not confirmed that the pet inherits effects from a shared parent layer.

Suggested areas to check:

• Compare the pet fog with the chat/activity bubble visible and hidden.
• Verify whether notification-stack state changes update the pet fog appearance, root effect surface, mask geometry, shadow, blur, or material bounds.
• Ensure the glass/blur/shadow effect is scoped to the bubble/platter and does not affect the pet silhouette.
• Check the behavior with both built-in and custom pets.

Diagnostics:

• First observed: Codex App 26.715.21425, build 5488
• More severe after update: Codex App 26.715.31925, build 5551
• macOS: Darwin 25.5.0 arm64
• Custom v2 pet spritesheet: 1536 x 1872 WebP, alpha channel present
• macOS Reduce Transparency preferences are not enabled
• Codex logs repeatedly report: Native pet material attachment completed attached=true failureReason=null
• The app bundle creates a transparent pet window, while the native composition path attaches a pet material/fog layer derived from the mascot/sprite alpha mask
• The current native module contains alpha-threshold masks, blur, diffusion, progressive blur, wallpaper sampling, and dynamic shadow layers
• The current app bundle includes an explicit pet-fog appearance system and internal production/A-B fog parameter controls

This suggests a regression or misconfiguration in the native pet composition material/fog layer, especially in the state-specific appearance parameters, rather than a broken pet asset or macOS accessibility setting.

Related but different:

• #30158 is a solid black transparency failure on Windows. This report is a translucent gray fog/halo on macOS.
• The missing resize handle is already tracked separately in #32163.