You loved Codex Pets but wished your pixel friend lived everywhere on your desktop, not just inside the Codex app? This is that. A free, open-source pixel pet that floats over every window on Windows and Mac, reacts to every AI coding agent you use — Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT Desktop, Gemini CLI — and to your whole system: Slack pings, calendar events, long coding sessions, music, late nights, low battery. Your pet learns your routine, gains personality through real progression (mood, energy, focus, friendship, days-together), and turns into the small companion your workflow always needed. Pick from 200+ community pixel companions, install with one click, or hatch your own from any image.
Install · How it works · Comparison · FAQ · Roadmap
When OpenAI shipped Codex Pets in May 2026, the response was immediate — pixel companions floating over your code editor, reacting to your agent's status, turning a serious tool into something that felt alive. Within days, community projects like Petdex (1155+ pets) sprung up to share custom designs. People hatched Doraemon, Naruto, Sam Altman, the Travel Frog, BAOD the blue-screen gremlin.
But the official feature has one limit: the pet only lives inside the Codex app. Close Codex, and your companion disappears. Switch to Claude Code? No reaction. Cursor? Nothing. Take a break to eat lunch? Your pet doesn't know.
A real desktop pet should live with you the whole day, react to your whole machine, and notice when you're working with Claude Code or Cursor too — not just OpenAI's agent.
This app is that. It floats above every window on Windows and Mac. It detects activity from any AI coding agent you use. And it goes beyond AI: it notices when you've been typing for two hours straight (the pet stretches), when Slack pings come in (the pet reacts), when your battery drops below 20% (the pet warns you), when it's 2am and you should probably sleep (the pet tucks itself in). Your pet has a real life on your desktop, and your workflow is just one part of its day.
What you get:
- 100% free, open-source, MIT licensed — no subscription, no telemetry, no account
- System-wide overlay — your pet floats over every window, every app, every workspace
- Multi-agent awareness — reacts to Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT Desktop, Gemini CLI, Aider, and any tool that exposes status
- Beyond AI agents — reacts to Slack notifications, calendar events, music, idle time, battery, system performance, time of day
- 200+ pixel pets at launch — built-in companions, plus Petdex import for community designs
- Hatch your own — generate a custom pet from any image, with full animation set
- Native one-click installer for Windows and Mac, every dependency bundled
Windows: Download codex-pets-x64.7z from the latest release and double-click. Digitally signed, passes SmartScreen.
Mac: Download the .dmg, drag to Applications. Apple Developer ID signed and notarized. Universal binary (Apple Silicon M1–M5, Intel).
60-second flow: Open the app. Pick a pet from the built-in library or paste a Petdex pet name. Choose which agents and system events your pet should react to. Done — your pet is now floating on your desktop, watching your work.
Your pet has eyes on three layers of your day:
Layer 1 — AI agents. Detects active Codex sessions, Claude Code processes, Cursor activity, ChatGPT Desktop and Gemini CLI windows. When an agent starts thinking, the pet sits down to watch. Tool calls? The pet leans in. Errors? Concerned face. Successful task? Tiny celebration. Long quiet stretch? Pet might wander off and come back later.
Layer 2 — System activity. Slack and Discord notifications make the pet glance at the source. Calendar events at top of the hour trigger gentle reminders. Music playing? Pet hums along. Battery below 20%? Pet looks worried. Long uninterrupted typing? Pet stretches and reminds you to take a break. Late at night? Pet starts yawning.
Layer 3 — Your routine. Days-together counter. Friendship grows from regular interaction. Mood, energy, focus stats evolve based on how you treat each other. Care actions (feed, play, rest) build bond. After a few weeks, your pet has a personality shaped by your specific work patterns — early-bird coders get pets who wake up cheerful, night-owl developers get pets who turn into nocturnal companions.
200+ pixel companions at launch:
- Built-in originals — Lumibun, Echo Cat, Pebble Bot, and 30+ more, all custom-designed for this app
- Petdex direct import — paste any Petdex pet name (
boba,doraemon,noir-webling, etc.) and the app pulls the sprite sheet automatically, all 1155+ community pets accessible - Hatch from image — drop any photo, sketch, or character art into the app and an integrated AI pipeline generates a full 8×9 sprite sheet with idle, walking, jumping, waving, sleeping, eating, and reacting frames
- Custom pet packs — share your hatched pets as
.petbundles with friends or upload to community gallery
Beyond reactions, the pet doubles as a unified status indicator across all your AI tools. Click the pet at any time to see a small popup: "Codex is reviewing your PR. Claude Code is waiting for input. Cursor finished its task." No more switching windows to check what's running. One pet, all your agents.
| Feature | Codex Pets (this app) | Codex Pets (OpenAI built-in) | codex-pet-companion (Python) | Petdex CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| System-wide overlay | Yes (every window) | Codex app only | Within companion app | N/A (CLI only) |
| Multi-agent awareness | Codex + Claude Code + Cursor + more | Codex only | Codex only | N/A |
| Beyond AI events (Slack, calendar, music, battery) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Native desktop app | Yes | Yes | Python/PyQt wrapper | CLI only |
| Mac support | Yes | Yes | No (Windows only) | Yes |
| Built-in pet count | 30+ originals | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| Community pet library | 200+ via Petdex import | Custom only | Custom only | 1155+ |
| Hatch your own from image | Yes (in-app) | Yes (in-app) | Manual sprite sheet | Manual |
| Open source | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Is it really free, and is there a paid tier coming? The app is 100% free, MIT licensed, no premium tier, no subscription, no telemetry. The only optional cost is the "Hatch from image" feature, which uses an AI pipeline to generate sprites — bundled free generations are included for casual use, and heavy users can paste their own OpenAI or DeepSeek API key for unlimited hatches at a few cents each. Everything else — using built-in pets, importing Petdex pets, multi-agent reactions, system-wide overlay — is permanently free.
Is it safe to download? Will it spy on my work? The app is MIT licensed with fully auditable source code on GitHub. Releases are code-signed on Windows and notarized with an Apple Developer ID on Mac. SHA-256 checksums are published for every release. The pet observes events, not content — it knows that Codex is running and that a Slack notification arrived, but it never reads your code, your messages, or your file contents. Zero telemetry, no analytics, no data leaves your machine. Build from source if you want to verify.
Is this the official OpenAI Codex Pets? Will OpenAI block it? No, this is an independent open-source project. The official Codex Pets is a feature inside OpenAI's Codex desktop app. This app extends the same idea — a pixel companion reacting to your AI workflow — into a system-wide, multi-agent pet that lives outside any single tool. It uses standard OS-level APIs (window detection, notification observation) plus public agent integration patterns. Nothing about it conflicts with OpenAI's Terms of Service or any other agent's ToS. The two can coexist on your machine — you'll just have two pets.
How does this differ from the official Codex Pets and Petdex? Official Codex Pets lives only inside the Codex app and reacts only to Codex agent status. Petdex is a public gallery and CLI installer for custom Codex pets — it depends on the official Codex Pets feature being installed. This app is a standalone desktop companion: it doesn't require Codex to be installed, lives over every window, reacts to multiple AI agents and to system-wide events, and imports the entire Petdex library so you get the best of both worlds. For most users, the cleanest setup is: keep your official Codex Pets if you're a Codex power user, run this app for everywhere-else coverage, and import your favorite Petdex designs into both.
Can I use any pet I want, including characters from games and anime? The built-in 30+ pet library is fully original art owned by this project. Petdex import gives you access to 1155+ community-created pets, which are user-submitted fan art — Petdex itself does not claim rights to any underlying IP, and we follow the same approach: we don't host or distribute fan art ourselves, we just facilitate import from Petdex's public CLI. Hatch-your-own works on any image you upload, and you are responsible for ensuring you have the rights to source images you use. As with all fan art, personal use is widely accepted, but commercial use of pets based on copyrighted characters is the user's legal responsibility.
v1.1 — Linux packages (.deb, .rpm, AppImage). Pet-to-pet interactions when multiple instances are active on the same network. Public pet gallery for sharing original hatches.
v1.2 — Voice reactions (pet says short lines on big events). Apple Watch and iPhone companion (peek at your pet when away from desk). Pomodoro and focus-session integration.
v2.0 — Pet pack subscriptions for original artists (revenue share for designers who contribute paid premium pet packs).
MIT License. See LICENSE.
This app is an independent open-source project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Crafter Station (Petdex), or any of the AI tools and platforms it observes. "Codex Pets," "Codex," "Claude Code," "Cursor," "Petdex," and other product names are used solely to identify the technologies the app reacts to (nominative fair use). The app observes window titles and process activity to infer agent status — it does not read code, messages, or file contents. Petdex import requires the user's own Petdex installation; we facilitate import from their public CLI but do not host or distribute their pet library. Users are responsible for ensuring they have rights to any source images used with the Hatch feature.
If your pet kept you company through a long coding session, please star the repo on GitHub. It's the only metric we track.