Codex Skin: Browser polish and more reliable Inbox

More room to write, browser controls that fit your theme, and reliable tracking of work in the background.

Added

• More composer widths: choose Codex +20 % or Codex +40 % between the original Codex width and native Hermes width. Existing preferences and the Codex default stay unchanged.

Improved

• Browser controls: rounded navigation and address capsules, grouped actions on wider panes and a separate close button. Surfaces, icons and soft shadows follow your theme. A lighter divider separates the toolbar from the page. Native controls and narrow-pane wrapping are preserved.

Fixed

• Leaving a chat immediately: new work still enters Inbox when you switch away before its identity checks finish, including short tasks that finish during those checks.
• Background conversations: recognize active chats without having to open each one, and attach their activity to the correct conversation. Ambiguous or conflicting identities remain excluded.
• Settle and Snooze: delayed events and background checks no longer override a decision you already made. Fresh work remains eligible to return after Settle.
• Subagent activity: recover already-running subagents after reload and retain activity received before identity checks finish. Keep a conversation marked as working while subagents remain active, even if the parent has finished or its reply has been read.
• Queued and completed subagents: keep queued work visible until it starts or ends, and prevent completed children from reappearing while Hermes finishes clearing its registry.
• Interrupted checks: incomplete, outdated or disconnected background reads no longer imply that all work has finished.
• Busy animation: working indicators no longer flash off during metadata refreshes. Switching chats, renaming or reordering threads preserves the animation of rows already in Inbox.

Codex Skin v1.9.1: Header and Inbox fixes

A small update for header controls, sidebar tabs and Inbox.

Fixed

• Sidebar tabs: Sessions, Bots and Terminal now use the same text styling as chat tabs. Unread badges, tab shapes and active underlines are unchanged.
• macOS header clicks: keep the window-drag area clear of Sessions, Bots and pane tabs while preserving the fixed transparent header.
• Page controls: limit the invisible drag handle above Skills, Tools, Connectors and Plugins to the page's actual top padding. Hidden cached pages no longer alter the chat's drag area.
• Inbox completion dots: clear the green indicator when the latest text reply is visible in the focused chat, including replies followed by tool-only bubbles. Duplicate completion events and late cleanup snapshots no longer relight a read reply; fresh work re-arms it. Reading does not settle the chat or remove it from Inbox.
• Quiet chat opening: remove the misleading "Could not return this chat to Inbox" notice when passive metadata discovery fails. Opening a chat alone still does not add or restore it to Inbox.

Maintenance

• Update the changelog and Inbox reading documentation, and add regression coverage for header clicks, reply visibility, passive metadata failures and sidebar typography.
• Keep the standalone and catalog plugin bundles identical, with version metadata and checksums updated together.

Codex Skin v1.9.0: Inbox

Codex Skin is learning from T3 Code!

A new Inbox keeps chats that need your attention together, so you can clear the list without archiving your conversations.

How to use it

Think of each thread as an independent task.

Once it's finished, click the checkmark to remove it from Inbox. It isn't archived, only hidden from Inbox. You can still find it in Sessions.

The goal is to have an empty Inbox at the end of the day.

Inbox is enabled by default, but you can turn it off whenever you want: open Command + K and select Codex Skin: Inbox.

I recommend keeping Pinned and Sessions collapsed so you can focus on your Inbox. Expand them whenever you need to find an older or pinned chat.

Added

• Inbox above Pinned and Sessions, enabled by default. Turn it on or off through Codex Skin: Inbox in the command palette.
• Automatic admission when a chat starts working. Chats stay in Inbox after the work finishes until you settle them. Opening a chat or reading its history does not add it.
• Settle hides a chat from Inbox without stopping its work, archiving, deleting or unpinning it. A notice below the threads offers Undo for 3 seconds.
• Snooze hides a chat for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours or 1 day. Use Wake now to bring it back early.
• Settling or snoozing the chat you are viewing opens the next Inbox chat, or a new chat if none remains. Acting on another chat does not interrupt the one you are viewing.
• Activity indicators follow Hermes' session status and the active theme, with a rounded animated outline while a chat is working.
• Settle and Snooze choices survive reloads and stay separate for each connection and profile. Turning Inbox off leaves those choices intact.

Fixed

• New work in older or settled conversations brings them back to Inbox, including pinned chats originally created through another interface. Opening history alone still does not add them.
• Work received before Settle can no longer undo that decision after a delayed ownership check. New work after Settle still restores the thread, while Snooze remains in force.

Known limitation

Cron sessions are excluded. A cron that triggers work inside a regular chat may still make that chat appear in Inbox.

Codex Skin v1.8.2: Tasks panel and header fixes

• Fixed transparent Tasks and Queue panels after the latest Hermes Desktop update.
• Kept the top bar height and window controls stable when toggling tabs or the browser.
• Removed the empty header band when chat tabs are hidden, while preserving window dragging and tab scrolling.

Codex Skin v1.8.1: Release images, aligned tabs and navigation fixes

Codex Skin v1.8.1 — Release images, aligned tabs and navigation fixes

Added

• Images in the release-history menu, including screenshots from previous releases.
• Images load when you open the menu, fit within its bounds, and keep a readable description if loading fails.

Fixed

• Kept the skin active when navigating through Capabilities, Messaging, Artifacts and back to chat.
• Fixed update detection stopping after navigation.
• Aligned chat and preview tabs vertically, with matching spacing above and below.
• Centered the left and right window controls on their tab bands, including after resizing or rearranging panes.
• Kept the release menu positioned correctly as images finish loading.

Improved

• Matched the composer's + icon to the send/stop button color across themes, without changing its shape or behavior.
• Restyled session-control error notices as compact, theme-aware Codex cards. Error indicators and native dismissal are preserved, and long messages wrap on narrow panes.
• Updated plugin-management instructions to Capabilities → Plugins.

Updating

Already on v1.8.0? Use the blue update button when this release appears. Your current release menu remains text-only until you update. Image support takes effect in the new version.

Codex Skin v1.8.0: In-app updates and UI refinements

Codex Skin v1.8.0: In-app updates and UI refinements

Updates now show up inside Hermes, so you don't need to follow Discord or GitHub to know when a new version is available.

Added

• A small blue update button beside the composer's + menu, shown only when a newer stable release is available.
• Hover to browse release notes pulled directly from GitHub, including older releases.
• Click to download and update the skin in place. Once the new version has loaded, a green check confirms success, gives two small bounces, then disappears. Your chat and skin settings stay in place.
• Automatic hourly update checks, with stale information refreshed when you return to Hermes or reconnect.

Improved

• Clearer conversation names, quieter headings and navigation icons, and subtler sidebar hover and selection colors.
• A more balanced + icon in the composer.
• Packaging for Hermes' plugin catalog, while keeping the standalone manual-install option.

Fixed

• Model names, capitalization and the Fast indicator now remain exactly as Hermes displays them. The skin no longer adds a duplicate reasoning label; Hermes' native Thinking Level control is unchanged.
• Tab close buttons now have a circular background, balanced spacing and their own space beside the title.
• Queued-message edit and send controls are centered across the full row, including when attachments or editing details are shown.

Getting the updater

Install v1.8.0 once using your existing installation method. The new button will handle future published releases on supported Hermes Desktop builds.

Update checks contact GitHub. No analytics are added, and no chat content is sent to GitHub.

Codex Skin v1.7.0: Hermes compatibility fixes

Codex Skin v1.7.0: Hermes compatibility fixes

Sorry about the broken styling after the recent Hermes update. I noticed that several parts of Codex Skin no longer matched the updated interface, so I went back through the skin and repaired them. This release also refines the layout and makes the conversation history rail more responsive.

Fixed

Tabs, browser and layout

• Restored Codex styling for chat, browser and other panel tabs, including selected-tab backgrounds, labels and close controls.
• Restored Sessions/Bots header styling and the hidden minimize control with Hermes' updated panel structure.
• Corrected browser header colors, tab-row height and equal spacing above and below the tabs.
• Refined the browser navigation row and address-bar spacing. The Codex dark theme now uses a cleaner, borderless address field.
• Removed the unused header band above the chat when there are no chat tabs and the sidebar and browser already carry the window controls.
• Removed the unwanted rounded chat corners above and below integrated tab headers. The tabs themselves keep their rounded shape.
• Made the vertical sidebar/chat and chat/browser separators finer without shrinking their resize handles.

Composer and conversation

• Restored the rounded Codex appearance of the Tasks, Queue and Background panels above the composer, including in split chats.
• Adapted task-list scrolling and scrollbar styling to the updated status-panel structure, keeping the rounded edges clean.
• Centered the icon, filename and close button in single-line artifact rows, including HTML previews.
• Restored Clean transcript behavior with Hermes' updated response grouping, while preserving final replies and the existing safety checks.
• Corrected model-name and reasoning-effort display in the composer by reading Hermes' native labels rather than the skin's own reformatted text.
• Fixed the composer's scroll-edge fade remaining active after a long draft becomes short enough to fit again.

Improved conversation history rail

• Fixed reversed-looking markers: the ticks now align on the left and expand to the right.
• Restored question-and-answer previews with Hermes' updated message structure and prevented the native tooltip from competing with the skin's preview.
• Gave the ticks more vertical spacing and quieter, theme-aware colors.
• Added a clearer current-message marker. Hover temporarily transfers emphasis to the previewed message; ordinary idle ticks no longer darken together.
• The rail now hides when its own chat pane is too narrow, independently of the overall window width.
• Removed the trailing width animation during pointer movement and repeated geometry measurements from stable hover frames. The exit animation remains.
• Refreshes cached positions when needed so moving, resizing or scrolling the pane does not leave the hover effect using stale coordinates.
• Preserved native message jumps, keyboard navigation and virtualized scrolling, with the visible ticks aligned to their click targets.

Removed

• Titlebar autohide. The command-palette option and its behavior have been removed. The updated header layout no longer needs a separate hide-and-reveal mechanism. Tabs and window controls now remain accessible directly, without the old hover-triggered transitions. Old saved values no longer activate it; native Hermes window controls remain untouched.

Maintenance

• Clarified contribution rules: fixes for Hermes-native bugs belong upstream, not as workarounds inside Codex Skin.
• Expanded automated regression coverage for the updated Hermes layout, split panes, history navigation, hover behavior, narrow panes, themes and cleanup.
• Added a developer-console activation message with the loaded skin build and UI component counts to help diagnose loading issues.

Compatibility and updating

This release targets Desktop builds with the September 16, 2026 panel-header and virtualized-timeline changes (Hermes commit 2efbbef). Older Desktop builds, including code from Hermes Agent 0.21.3 / v2026.9.14 or earlier, should stay on Codex Skin v1.6.0 and use its pinned download rather than main.

The compatibility target is the Desktop build, not a blanket remote Agent-version threshold; Hermes Agent and Hermes Desktop can update independently. This release has been tested against the updated layout only and does not guarantee compatibility with all future builds.

The plugin folder and internal IDs are unchanged, so existing installations update in place. The remaining Composer width, Pinned user messages and Clean transcript settings are retained.

Codex Skin does not modify Hermes source code. This release does not claim to fix Hermes-native Queue persistence or session-routing issues.

Codex Skin v1.6.0: UI improvements and fixes

Codex Skin v1.6.0: UI improvements and fixes

Find your way back through long conversations, with smoother navigation and more consistent styling.

Added

• Conversation history rail. Hover over the markers on the left of your chat to preview a question and its reply, then click to jump there. The markers expand smoothly as your pointer moves between them.

Improved

• Titlebar autohide is now On by default (previously Off). The new default applies only when no choice has been saved. Existing On and Off choices stay unchanged. You can turn it off through Codex Skin: Titlebar autohide in the command palette. The bar hides only while the left sidebar is closed.
• Browser-style tabs for chat and other main panels, with a more consistent top-bar layout.
• The Bots sidebar now matches Sessions, including backgrounds, hover states and rounded selections. Avatars and status colors stay unchanged.

Fixed

• Titlebar autohide interfering with clicks on tabs, close buttons and the + button.
• Blank space or shifting tabs when reopening the sidebar.
• Dark backgrounds behind tab close buttons and an unwanted tint around the composer.
• The chat’s rounded corner beside the sidebar.

Removed

• The partial-collapse button in the Sessions/Bots header. Use the full sidebar toggle instead; previously collapsed panels can still be restored.

Codex Skin v1.5.0

Codex Skin v1.5.0

More room for your conversation, with Codex-style images, browser style and a refined composer.

Added

• Codex Skin: Titlebar autohide in the command palette. Off by default, and can be toggled on or off. When enabled, the top bar hides while the left sidebar is closed and slides back into view when you move the pointer to the top edge.

Improved

• Square image previews in the composer and chat. Sent attachments sit above your message, aligned to the right; generated images keep their normal size.
• Codex-style browser tabs, address bar and controls, without changing the websites inside.
• Updated dark codex theme, composer spacing and the attachment button. More room to type before scrolling, with a soft fade for long drafts.

Fixed

• Sent image attachments appearing on the left instead of alongside your message (#7).
• Images briefly appearing at full size before becoming thumbnails.

Codex Skin v1.4.0

Codex Skin v1.4.0

Codex Skin now makes long Hermes conversations easier to scan, with an optional clean transcript, smoother code diffs and more coherent sidebar chrome.

Added

• New Codex Skin: Clean transcript setting in the command palette.
• It is Off by default. When enabled, live progress remains visible; after the final response, safely identified settled tools, thinking, changed-file summaries, system notices and interim replies are hidden.
• User messages, final answers, generated images, artifacts and alerts stay visible.

Improved

• Made the Attach and / menus more compact and better aligned with the composer.
• Made expanded Patched file diffs smaller and smoother.
• Refined sidebar typography, session rows, idle states, the chat corner and unnecessary divider lines while preserving Hermes' native tab, drag and resize interactions.

Known limitation

• Older content loaded through Show previous messages can remain visible when Hermes no longer exposes enough information to distinguish a final answer from an interim reply. Clean transcript leaves uncertain content visible rather than risk hiding a real final answer.