Simon Willison creates custom Codex Desktop pet using GPT-5.6 and gpt-image-2

Simon Willison demonstrates how to create a custom animated "pet" for the Codex Desktop application by leveraging OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol model and the gpt-image-2 API.

The process involves using GPT-5.6 Sol to generate character reference images and sprite assets through multiple rounds of interaction with gpt-image-2. Willison utilized open-source skills from the `openai/skills` and `openai/codex` repositories, specifically `hatch-pet` and `imagegen`, to automate the generation of animation loops and sprite sheets.

The resulting custom pet, named "Pedalican," appears as an animated robot on the desktop providing updates on Codex tasks, with all intermediate steps and generated assets documented in a public GitHub repository.