Feature request: high-visibility task-completion signal in the unified Codex app
Summary
For long-running Codex tasks, it would be useful to have an optional, high-visibility completion signal in the unified Codex app so users can keep working elsewhere without having to periodically check whether a task has finished.
Motivation
In workflows with repeated 5–20 minute Codex runs, the task itself may finish quickly, but the next step can be delayed simply because the user is focused in another app and does not notice completion. Over a sequence of many runs, this human attention latency can add hours or days even when Codex's actual execution time is much shorter.
This is especially relevant for users who intentionally let Codex run in the background while they work on other tasks.
Suggested behavior
A configurable high-visibility completion mode could combine one or more of:
- Native macOS notification when a task transitions from running to completed.
- Dock badge and/or bounce until the completed task is acknowledged.
- Optional completion sound.
- Persistent visual marker on completed tasks until opened.
- Optional brief theme pulse in the Codex window, for example dark → light → dark (or the inverse) for about 1–2 seconds, to provide a strong peripheral-vision cue.
- Clicking the notification should jump directly to the completed task.
UX principle
The signal should be noticeable without being disruptive, and configurable by the user. A transient animation alone is not sufficient; pairing it with a persistent indicator would make it useful when the user is away from the Codex window at the exact moment of completion.
Why this matters
The goal is not simply more notifications. It is to reduce idle handoff time in multi-step workflows where Codex completes a bounded task, waits for review or the next instruction, and the user is productively occupied elsewhere.
A high-visibility completion mode would improve throughput without changing Codex execution behavior, model quality, or autonomy boundaries.