Claude Code and Codex pets: how to get one for every session
Codex has pets in two places. In the ChatGPT desktop app, open Settings → Pets , type /pet , or press ⌥Space on macOS to show a floating pet. In an interactive Codex CLI session, type /pets or /pet to choose a terminal pet for that session. Claude Code and Grok Build have no built-in equivalent today. A pet is a small animated companion that shows what your agent is doing: working, waiting for…
Claude Code and Codex pets are small animated companions that provide visual feedback about a session's progress. In the ChatGPT desktop app, pets can be accessed through Settings → Pets, typed /pet, or accessed with ⌥Space on macOS. To create a custom pet, navigate to Settings → Pets and click Create pet. The app installs a skill called hatch-pet, which guides you through describing the pet or providing an image.
Once created, the pet is saved to ~/.codex/pets/name/ and can be selected in Settings → Pets. Pets have four states: Running, Needs input, Ready, and Blocked. These states are represented by animations in a sprite sheet, which includes frames for idle, running, waving, jumping, failed, waiting, working, and review. In the Codex CLI, pets are accessed using the /pets command, which allows selecting a pet for the current session or hiding it.
Each session can have a unique pet in the Codex CLI, while the ChatGPT desktop app shows a floating pet above a small chat box. In PonyMux, pets are displayed in the terminal window and line up above each session. Six default ponies are available, and users can add custom pets by adding them to ~/.codex/pets/ and rescan settings.
To switch pets in PonyMux, open Settings → General → Pets and select a different pet for the current Terminal, or remove the pet if necessary.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
This story
This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.
