Codex App sidebar: reverse active and inactive tab background hierarchy

No implementation files or tests are identified. First inspect the public openai/codex repository to confirm its CLI, TUI, and app-server scope; the desktop App frontend/sidebar is stated to be elsewhere. Done means active, inactive, hover, and keyboard-focus tab states are distinct in light and dark themes without reduced contrast or accessibility.

What version of the Codex App are you using?

26.721.41059 (build 5848)

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT subscription

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.4.0 arm64 arm (macOS 26.4.1)

What issue are you seeing?

When several conversation tabs are open in the Codex App sidebar, the active tab has a gray background while inactive tabs are transparent.

This visual hierarchy is easy to interpret backwards: the gray tab can look disabled or inactive, while the transparent tabs look like the normal selectable state. I have repeatedly clicked the already-active tab or switched to the wrong conversation because I could not identify the current tab at a glance.

This is especially error-prone when several similarly named tasks are open.

What steps can reproduce the issue?

1. Open multiple Codex conversations as tabs in the sidebar.
2. Switch between the tabs.
3. Compare the active and inactive tab headers.
4. Observe that the active tab is gray and the inactive tabs are transparent.

What is the expected behavior?

Reverse the current background treatment:

• Active tab: use the normal/transparent background.
• Inactive tabs: use the gray background.

The selected state should remain distinguishable through the existing active indicator, foreground treatment, or another accessible cue. Hover and focus states should remain distinct from both active and inactive states.

Acceptance criteria:

• With three or more tabs open, the current conversation can be identified immediately without clicking.
• Active, inactive, hover, and keyboard-focus states are visually distinct in both light and dark themes.
• The change does not reduce text contrast or keyboard accessibility.

Additional information

This request is intentionally limited to swapping the active and inactive tab-header background hierarchy. It does not require a broader sidebar redesign.

I first attempted to prepare a code contribution, but the public openai/codex repository currently contains the CLI, TUI, and app-server code, not the Codex desktop App frontend/sidebar implementation.