I ran into a small but painful Codex UX gap on macOS: turn-complete notifications are useful, but they do not cover every "Codex is waiting for me" moment. The easiest one to miss is a long-running task that reaches an approval prompt.

I put together a small hook-based workaround:

https://github.com/constansino/codex-attention-notifier

What it does:

• Sends a native macOS notification for Codex PermissionRequest hook events.
• Logs notification events under ~/.codex/logs/codex-attention-notifier.log.
• Does not approve, deny, or modify any tool call.
• Keeps PreToolUse disabled by default, because Codex currently shows a visible "before tool use" hook record for each matched shell command.

Install:

git clone https://github.com/constansino/codex-attention-notifier.git
cd codex-attention-notifier
python3 install.py

Then restart Codex Desktop or open a new Codex session so the hook config is loaded.

Quick test:

printf '%s\n' '{"hook_event_name":"PermissionRequest","tool_name":"Bash","cwd":"'"$PWD"'","tool_input":{"description":"Command requires approval by policy","command":"xcodebuild -scheme Debug build"}}' \
  | python3 ~/.codex/hooks/codex_attention_notify.py

This is not a first-party fix. It is just a practical local workaround built on Codex hooks. In particular, it does not solve the deeper case where a child process is already running and only later blocks on stdin; for that, Codex would need a stable "terminal interaction / waiting for input" attention event.

Related threads I found while looking into this:

• Play a sound when Codex finishes a prompt / task #3962
• Add notification support for plan mode questions #11097
• Emit "approval-requested" desktop notification for request_permissions prompt #17716