Codex Desktop: expose task summaries and show them on sidebar hover

What variant of Codex are you using?

App (Codex Desktop on Windows)

What feature would you like to see?

Background

I built and open-sourced a Codex Skill:

Codex Task Title Manager

The current public version is v1.4.0.

The Skill uses official Codex task tools to read the actual conversation and derive factual, searchable titles from what a task really accomplished, rather than simply repeating the first user message.

It currently supports:

• distinguishing completed work from planning, partial progress, and failed verification;
• handling fork, delegation, handoff, and mainline-sync boundaries;
• generating search-oriented, balanced, and archival title profiles;
• previewing the complete mapping and requiring user confirmation before batch renames;
• protecting manually edited titles;
• keeping privacy-minimized recovery records;
• using only official task tools, without modifying Codex databases, caches, or client files.

Its purpose is to make a large history of Codex tasks easier to identify and search from concise sidebar titles.

Current workflow

Before renaming a task, the Skill produces information such as:

• the original title;
• a factual task digest;
• a search-oriented title;
• a balanced title;
• an archival title.

For example:

Original title: Handle historical tasks Factual digest: Read recent historical tasks, generated titles from each task's actual outcome, applied the user-confirmed batch, and skipped tasks that were still active. Balanced title: Batch rename and outcome verification for Codex task history

The factual digest explains:

• what was actually completed;
• where the work stopped;
• whether verification passed;
• what limitations or unfinished items remain.

The title serves a different purpose: fast scanning and search in the sidebar.

Both layers are valuable, but they should not be forced into the same short string.

Current problem

A task title must stay concise or the sidebar becomes difficult to scan.

However, a concise title cannot also contain the full outcome, verification status, limitations, and latest progress.

After a rename is applied, the sidebar normally retains only the concise title. The factual context that helped produce that title is no longer convenient to inspect.

In my current Codex Desktop workflow, understanding an older task again usually requires me to:

1. open the task;
2. read through the conversation;
3. or run the title-management Skill again;
4. and regenerate a task digest.

This becomes inefficient when managing many historical tasks.

I would like task titles and task summaries to become two information layers:

• normal state: show a concise title for fast scanning;
• hover or keyboard focus: show the latest task summary before the user decides whether to open the task.

Existing capability

In the official Codex task-list capability available to me, task data can already include:

• title
• summary
• updatedAt
• task status
• project information

This suggests that Codex may already generate and retain task summaries.

A minimal implementation should therefore not need to call a model whenever the pointer hovers over a task. The Desktop client could render the existing summary.

If summary is not currently a stable, officially exposed task field, I would also like Codex to make it available as a stable read-only field for:

• Codex Desktop;
• official task-reading tools;
• authorized Codex Skills.

“Exposed” here means an official, stable product capability. It does not mean publishing a user's task summary on the internet. The summary must remain within the existing account, device, and task access boundaries.

Desired interaction

The resting sidebar row should remain compact and continue to show:

• the concise task title;
• project identity;
• existing status or time information.

After approximately 300–500 ms of hover, or when the row receives keyboard focus, show a compact summary card containing:

1. the full task title;
2. current task status;
3. last-updated time;
4. task summary;
5. project identity.

Example:

Batch rename and outcome verification for Codex task history Completed · Updated 15 minutes ago Task summary Generated and applied new titles from actual task outcomes. Verified the batch and did not modify tasks that were still active. Project: Codex Task Title Manager

Summary data source and update behavior

The card should prefer the task's existing summary.

Suggested behavior:

• hovering must not itself trigger a model request;
• an active task shows its latest available summary;
• the card updates normally when the underlying task summary changes;
• the last-updated time communicates how fresh the summary is;
• an idle or completed task shows its latest outcome summary;
• when no summary exists, preserve the current hover behavior without an empty summary section;
• clamp long summaries to approximately two or three lines, with the full task available by opening it.

Relationship to the open-source Skill

This feature does not require Codex to bundle or depend on my Skill.

The Skill provides a concrete workflow:

1. read the task's actual outcome;
2. produce a factual digest;
3. derive a concise title;
4. let the user confirm and apply the rename;
5. use the title to find the task later.

The missing sixth step is:

After finding the task, let the user inspect its latest summary by hovering, without opening the conversation.

A native Codex implementation would complement my Skill, but it would also benefit anyone who manages a large history of tasks.

Separation of responsibilities

The fields should have distinct roles:

• title: “What task is this?”
• summary: “How far did the task get, and what was the outcome?”

Task titles should not need to become longer just to preserve context.

The summary should also not replace or hide the project identity. Title, project, and summary are three separate information layers.

Naming

Recommended user-facing label:

Task summary

Recommended underlying field name:

summary

I would avoid “Public summary,” because it could imply that private task content is being published.

I would also avoid “Real-time summary” unless Codex guarantees real-time refresh behavior. Showing the last-updated time communicates freshness more accurately.

Acceptance criteria

• Codex provides a stable, read-only task summary field.
• Resting sidebar rows remain compact.
• The task title and project identity remain visible.
• Hovering a task reveals its existing summary.
• Keyboard focus also makes the summary accessible.
• Hovering does not trigger a new summary-generation request.
• The card shows task status and last-updated time.
• Active tasks can display the latest available summary.
• Missing summaries do not create an empty section.
• Long summaries are safely clamped.
• The summary does not replace or hide project identity.
• Rendering summaries does not noticeably degrade sidebar performance.
• Summaries remain within existing privacy and access boundaries.

Additional information

The open-source Skill and its implementation details are available here:

https://github.com/ChenTingToDo/codex-task-title-manager