Codex Desktop 26.820.60940: global UI font weight became noticeably too thin after update

What version of the Codex App are you using?

ChatGPT / Codex Desktop 26.820.60940 (build 7119)

Previous version: 26.818.61809 (build 7019)

What subscription do you have?

Pro

What platform is your computer?

macOS 15.6.1 (24G90), Apple Silicon arm64

What issue are you seeing?

After updating from 26.818.61809 to 26.820.60940, text throughout the Codex Desktop UI became noticeably thinner.

The change affects the overall visual appearance, including the sidebar, conversation content, composer, and settings. The new weight is less comfortable to scan during extended use, and I prefer the typography used in the previous version.

This is not caused by a font-size or font-family setting. My UI font size remains 15, and the application still uses the macOS system font stack.

A comparison of the packaged CSS shows a measurable global font-weight change.

Previous version:

[data-codex-window-type="electron"] {
  --vscode-font-weight: 445;
}

body {
  font-weight: var(--vscode-font-weight);
}

Current version:

[data-codex-window-type="electron"] {
  /* the 445 override has been removed */
}

:root {
  --font-weight-normal: 400;
}

body {
  font-weight: var(--vscode-font-weight);
}

The effective base UI weight therefore changed from approximately 445 to 400.

I understand that this may be related to the mixed Chinese/Latin font-weight behavior discussed in #29827, where weights above 400 can cause Chinese text to resolve to PingFangSC-Medium. However, applying weight 400 globally also makes the rest of the UI noticeably thinner.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Use Codex Desktop 26.818.61809 on macOS with the default UI font.
2. Observe the visual weight of the sidebar, conversation text, composer, and settings.
3. Update to 26.820.60940.
4. Keep the same UI font and font-size settings.
5. Observe that the entire UI now renders with a noticeably lighter font weight.

What is the expected behavior?

The default UI typography should remain comfortable to read and visually consistent across updates.

Ideally, Codex could do one of the following:

• Restore the previous desktop UI weight.
• Provide a UI font-weight setting, such as Regular / Default / Medium.
• Scope the Chinese/Latin font-weight adjustment to the affected text instead of reducing the global body weight.

Additional information

The official changelog for this release does not mention a typography or font-weight change.

Related reports:

• #29827 — Chinese text resolves to a heavier font weight than Latin text on macOS
• #21511 — macOS desktop app renders UI text with incorrect font/fallback
• #22801 — Sidebar font became too bold after an earlier update