Say it. See it.
Code in it.
Type one sentence and Codex paints its own wallpaper, or grab one of hundreds of community skins. It switches live, in about a second.
Free, open source, one small binary. Unofficial, not affiliated with OpenAI.
Hand it to your agent.
Paste this into Codex, Claude Code or any coding agent on your Mac. It installs everything and tells you the one thing only you can do.
Install Codex Color on this Mac: 1. Run `cargo install codex-color`. If cargo isn't installed, stop and tell me. Don't install Rust without asking. 2. Run `codex-color install-skill` and `codex-color install-launcher`. 3. Don't restart Codex. Tell me to drag "Codex Color" from ~/Applications into my Dock and open Codex from it. Then I can type `$codex-color surprise me`.
Or do it yourself
Three commands, about a minute.
cargo install codex-colorcodex-color install-skillcodex-color install-launcherThen open Codex from Codex Color in ~/Applications, or pin it to your Dock. After that, every skin applies live.
Just say what you want to see.
Talk to Codex like you'd talk to a friend with good taste. The $codex-color skill takes it from there.
Dream one up
Codex paints it with its built-in image model, picks colours you can read, and applies it. Ask for "3 options" to choose.
Use your own picture
Drag a picture into the chat and send $codex-color. Or drop it on Codex Color in your Dock, and it changes on the spot.
Surprise me
A random reviewed theme from the DreamSkin community gallery, downloaded and applied in seconds.
Bring a link
Found one you love? Paste the link. It's hash-checked and safety-checked before it touches your app.
Change any skin
New colours, light or dark, or an edited picture, for any saved skin, community ones included. It's saved as a new skin with the original's credits, and the original stays as it is.
Make it move
Snow, rain, stars, fireflies, petals, fireworks or a slow drift over any picture, or a looping video or GIF as the wallpaper. It pauses while Codex is hidden.
Styles it knows: photo · watercolour · anime background · ink wash · oil painting · pixel art · 3D diorama · synthwave · minimal.
No hacks inside the app.
The Codex app itself is never modified. Codex Color paints on top, remembers your choice, and can undo everything.
Open
Codex Color.app starts Codex with a local debug port (127.0.0.1 only), the same one developers use.
Paint
A small script puts your wallpaper behind the interface and recolours Codex's own colour tokens, so text stays readable.
Remember
The palette goes into Codex's settings, with your original backed up. codex-color off restores it exactly.
Keep
A tiny watcher re-applies the skin if the window reloads. From then on, every change is live.
Good to know: while a skin is on, that debug port lets any program on your Mac control Codex, with no password. If that worries you, codex-color off --restart reopens Codex normally and closes it. macOS only for now.
Standing on great shoulders.
Codex Color exists because these people built something wonderful first.
Codex Dream Skin
The original approach, the theme pack format and the part selectors Codex Color builds on.
View on GitHub → DreamSkin.cc & theme authorsThe community gallery
Every "surprise me" comes from here. Each theme keeps its author and licence.
Browse the gallery → freestylefly · MITawesome-gpt-image-2
The prompt craft behind the skill's style presets and structured image prompts.
View on GitHub →Your next session deserves
a better view.
Copy the prompt, hand it to your agent, and say something beautiful.