Pets are optional animated companions for following work. Where a pet appears and what it shows depend on the interface you use. Choosing a pet changes its appearance, not how ChatGPT completes tasks.
Use a floating pet
In the ChatGPT desktop app, a pet can float above other app windows and help you follow activity across your tasks.
Choose and wake a pet
- Open the profile menu at the bottom of the app and select Pets. You can also open Settings and go to Pets.
- Choose a built-in or custom pet.
- Enter
/pet, or open the command menu and select Wake Pet.
Select Tuck Away Pet in Settings > Pets or the command menu, or enter
/pet again, to hide the pet. Your selection and the pet’s position persist
when you reopen the app.
When you select a custom pet, it also appears in your Profile view.
Understand pet status
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Running | A task is actively working. |
| Needs input | A task needs your approval, answer, or another decision. |
| Ready | A task has completed and has unread activity. |
| Blocked | A task failed or encountered a system error. |
When more than one task has activity, the pet prioritizes tasks that need input, followed by blocked, ready, and running tasks. Open the activity tray to choose a task.
Select the pet to return to ChatGPT, or select an activity to open its task. The activity tray is separate from system notifications.
Follow Computer Use
On macOS, the Computer Use picture-in-picture window can attach to an awake pet. Move the pet, and the window follows.
Create a custom pet
- Open Settings > Pets and select Create your own pet.
- The app installs the bundled
hatch-petskill, reloads skills, and opens a new task. - Describe the pet you want and send the prompt.
- When the task finishes, return to Settings > Pets, select Refresh, and choose your new pet.
Custom pets created in the desktop app are stored locally on your computer. They don’t automatically sync to ChatGPT web.
Reduce animation
Pets respect your operating system’s reduced motion setting. When reduced motion is enabled, the pet uses a still frame instead of sprite animation.
Choose a pet on the web
If Pets are available for your account and workspace, open Settings > Personalization > Pet > Select pet. Choose a built-in pet, or choose Default to use ChatGPT without a pet.
A web pet appears inside supported ChatGPT Work tasks. It doesn’t provide the
desktop app’s floating overlay, activity tray, or /pet command.
Upload a custom pet
Select Upload pet to add a custom sprite sheet. The file must be a transparent PNG or WebP, exactly 1536 × 1872 pixels, and no larger than 20 MiB. You can edit, download, refresh, or delete uploaded pets from the same setting.
Choose a terminal pet
In an interactive Codex CLI session:
- Enter
/petsor/petto open the pet picker. - Enter
/pets <name>to choose a pet directly. - Enter
/pets offto disable terminal pets.
The picker includes built-in pets and compatible custom pets installed on your computer. A terminal pet reports activity for the current CLI session. It uses Running, Needs input, Ready, and Blocked states, but it doesn’t provide the desktop app’s multiple-task activity tray.
Terminal pets require iTerm2 3.6 or later, or a terminal with Kitty graphics or Sixel support. They are unavailable inside tmux and Zellij.
Pets in the IDE extension
The Codex IDE extension doesn’t provide a pet picker or floating pet overlay. Use the ChatGPT desktop app or Codex CLI when you want to use your own pet.