I know external contributions may not be open right now, but I have a local fix ready if the team wants it or wants to use it as a reference.

VoiceOver users currently hear decorative terminal UI as content while Codex is working. For example, active command/status rows can be announced as repeated spaces, bullets, "running", and box-drawing characters. This interrupts reading code and makes it hard to review terminal output while Codex is still producing updates.

The main pain points:

• Live command/status rows are re-rendered with spinner/bullet/shimmer-style decoration.
• Box drawing such as │ and └ is announced as "box drawing".
• When new content arrives, VoiceOver may re-read older completed transcript content, causing the user to lose their place.

Recommended behavior:

• Add codex --screen-reader or codex --accessible.
• Disable spinner/shimmer/decorative bullets in that mode.
• Render plain indentation instead of box drawing.
• Minimize redraws that cause completed history to be treated as new spoken content.
• Keep the current visual TUI unchanged for users who want it.

I have a branch with a first patch that starts by making the no-animation path quieter for active exec/status rows and removing box drawing from exec output prefixes.