OpenAI’s Codex introduces AI pets to help developers vibe-code

OpenAI has introduced AI “pets” into its Codex suite, letting users create companions to help them keep track of their projects.

OpenAI has introduced animated companions into its vibecoding platform, Codex, helping developers keep track of their task status with their own little personalized character.

Developers using OpenAI’s Codex have quickly taken to in-app animated companions, known as Codex Pets.

These little animations are overlaid across other applications to show developers' task status when they aren’t actively using the platform.

Codex Pets shows the active thread updating the developer on whether Codex is running, waiting for input, or ready for review.

Alongside these updates, the animated characters speak to developers, providing a short prompt so users can see what’s happening without reopening the thread, according to OpenAI.

Developers can interact with their character by clicking on it or moving it around the screen with their mouse.

To create your own Codex Pet, all you need to do is install the “hatch-pet” skill, reload skills from the command menu, and press Cmd+K or Ctrl+K to force reload skills, then prompt the program to create a pet.

The prompt can be found on the OpenAI developers' website and can be copied directly from the article.

Codex users have already begun creating their own Codex Pets, with the site having 22 pages of different animations to choose from.

While some people have chosen to recreate their favorite Studio Ghibli characters, such as Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro, or Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service, others have chosen to create their own mini tech CEOs like Elon Musk and, of course, OpenAI’s own mini Sama (Sam Altman’s social media alter ego).

Developers have clearly expressed their political agenda through characters, as mini versions of President Trump, former President Biden, and Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te have appeared on the Codex Pet site.

Lai Ching-te has been created under the name “Liar Cheater,” and his biography frames him as a President who “favors purifying minds and backtracking the energy policy.”

The user who created the “Mini Sama” Codex Pet imagines Sam Altman as a character with “anxious sideways eyes” and “hunched board-room chaos energy.”

Why is Codex so popular?

When evaluated by external experts, OpenAI’s o3 was found to make 20 percent fewer major errors than its original model on “difficult, real -world tasks.”

The model was found to excel in areas like programming, business, consulting, and creative ideation, OpenAI claims.

Codex uses o3 to help developers automate tasks and work on various projects at once.

The platform writes code, answers questions about users’ codebases, fixes bugs, and proposes pull requests for review, according to OpenAI.

Vibecoding comes complete with cybersecurity cons

While platforms like Codex help lower the barrier to entry when coding websites and applications, AI-written code does come with drawbacks.

Since the emergence of vibecoding, bad actors have exploited AI platforms like Lovable to build phishing pages.

Proofpoint spotted tens of thousands of malicious Loveable URLs monthly at the beginning of 2025 and throughout the year.

Lovable, valued at over $6 billion and serving clients such as Microsoft and Nvidia, also faced backlash in 2026.

The cybersecurity researcher @weezerOSINT on X reported that Lovable had a mass data breach affecting every project created before November 2025.

A bug affecting the vibecoding platform was easily triggered without sophisticated hacking techniques and revealed users’ source code, database credentials, AI chat histories, and customer data, fully available to anyone using a free account.

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