## Why
Connector declarations currently enter Codex through broad plugin
capability summaries, then MCP setup, turn tooling, and `app/list` each
reconstruct the same information. That makes executor-selected
connectors difficult to add without coupling connector behavior to the
host plugin loader.
This PR introduces a small connector-owned value that later stack layers
can populate before thread startup.
## What changed
- Move the pure app-declaration parser into `codex-connectors`,
preserving declaration order and category cleanup while leaving
host-side validation and deduplication unchanged.
- Add an immutable `ConnectorSnapshot` with ordered connector IDs and
plugin display-name provenance.
- Adapt the existing local-plugin capability summaries into that
snapshot at current consumer boundaries.
- Use the snapshot for MCP tool provenance, turn connector inventory,
and `app/list`.
- Keep the crate API narrow: no test-only snapshot accessors are
exposed.
The externally visible behavior is unchanged. Connector tools still come
from the orchestrator-owned `/ps/mcp` server, and local plugin
enablement remains owned by the existing plugin loader.
## Stack scope
This is the foundation only. It does not read selected executor packages
or change thread startup. #29852 adds the executor-backed declaration
reader, and #29856 composes selected declarations into a thread
snapshot.
## Why
Connector metadata is consumed by connector discovery, ChatGPT
integration, core, and TUI code. Treating app-server's wire DTO as the
shared domain model reverses the intended dependency direction.
## What changed
- Added connector-owned app branding, review, screenshot, metadata, and
info types.
- Added explicit conversions in app-server and TUI while preserving
app-server's wire payloads.
- Removed production app-server-protocol dependencies from connectors
and ChatGPT connector code.
## Stack
This is PR 4 of 6, stacked on [PR
#29722](https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/29722). Review only the
delta from `codex/split-config-layer-types`. Next: [PR
#29724](https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/29724).
## Validation
- Connector and tools coverage passed.
- App-server app-list coverage passed: 13 tests.
## Summary
- move `AppToolPolicyEvaluator` and the Apps config/requirements policy
logic from `codex-core` into `codex-connectors`
- resolve one immutable policy snapshot per exposure build and reuse it
across every Codex Apps MCP tool
- keep core as a thin adapter from MCP metadata to connector-owned
policy input while preserving the call-time defense-in-depth check
## Why
`build_mcp_tool_exposure` evaluates every Codex Apps tool on each
sampling request. The old path rebuilt effective Apps configuration for
every tool, and the policy implementation lived in the already-large
core crate even though it is connector-specific.
The connector-owned evaluator keeps the expensive config merge/decode
out of the loop and gives core only the effective policy result it
needs.
## Performance
With the real 557-tool Apps corpus, `build_mcp_tool_exposure` measured
3.74 ms and 3.33 ms after the extraction (3.54 ms mean). The original
path measured 807 ms mean, so the final result retains the 99.6%
reduction.
## Validation
- `cargo check -p codex-connectors -p codex-core`
- `just test -p codex-connectors` — 15 passed
- `just test -p codex-core --lib connectors` — 35 passed
- `just test -p codex-core --lib mcp_tool_exposure` — 5 passed
- `just test -p codex-core --lib mcp_tool_call` — 72 passed
- `just bazel-lock-update`
- `just bazel-lock-check`
- `just fix -p codex-connectors`
- `just fix -p codex-core`
- `just fmt`
## Summary
Startup tool construction currently depends on connector directory
metadata for `tool_suggest` discoverables. On a cold directory cache,
that can put slow connector-directory requests on the blocking path even
though the tools array only needs directory data for install
suggestions, not for the live connector MCP tools themselves.
This PR keeps the discoverables path off that cold network fetch:
- read connector directory metadata from cache only when building
discoverable tools
- persist connector directory metadata to
`~/.codex/cache/codex_app_directory/<hash>.json` and use it to hydrate
the in-memory cache on later runs before the normal refresh path updates
it
- use connector-directory-specific cache naming to distinguish this
metadata cache from the separate Codex Apps tools-spec cache
This reduces first-turn startup work without changing how live connector
MCP tools are sourced. Longer term, directory-backed install suggestions
should move to a search-based flow so they no longer need to be inlined
into the tools prompt at all.
## Testing
- `cargo test -p codex-connectors`
- `cargo test -p codex-chatgpt`
- `cargo test -p codex-core
request_plugin_install_is_available_without_search_tool_after_discovery_attempts`
- `cargo test -p codex-core
tool_suggest_uses_connector_id_fallback_when_directory_cache_is_empty`
## Summary
`cargo test` has entails both running standard Rust tests and doctests.
It turns out that the doctest discovery is fairly slow, and it's a cost
you pay even for crates that don't include any doctests.
This PR disables doctests with `doctest = false` for crates that lack
any doctests.
For the collection of crates below, this speeds up test execution by
>4x.
E.g., before this PR:
```
Benchmark 1: cargo test -p codex-utils-absolute-path -p codex-utils-cache -p codex-utils-cli -p codex-utils-home-dir -p codex-utils-output-truncation -p codex-utils-path -p codex-utils-string -p codex-utils-template -p codex-utils-elapsed -p codex-utils-json-to-toml
Time (mean ± σ): 1.849 s ± 4.455 s [User: 0.752 s, System: 1.367 s]
Range (min … max): 0.418 s … 14.529 s 10 runs
```
And after:
```
Benchmark 1: cargo test -p codex-utils-absolute-path -p codex-utils-cache -p codex-utils-cli -p codex-utils-home-dir -p codex-utils-output-truncation -p codex-utils-path -p codex-utils-string -p codex-utils-template -p codex-utils-elapsed -p codex-utils-json-to-toml
Time (mean ± σ): 428.6 ms ± 6.9 ms [User: 187.7 ms, System: 219.7 ms]
Range (min … max): 418.0 ms … 436.8 ms 10 runs
```
For a single crate, with >2x speedup, before:
```
Benchmark 1: cargo test -p codex-utils-string
Time (mean ± σ): 491.1 ms ± 9.0 ms [User: 229.8 ms, System: 234.9 ms]
Range (min … max): 480.9 ms … 512.0 ms 10 runs
```
And after:
```
Benchmark 1: cargo test -p codex-utils-string
Time (mean ± σ): 213.9 ms ± 4.3 ms [User: 112.8 ms, System: 84.0 ms]
Range (min … max): 206.8 ms … 221.0 ms 13 runs
```
Co-authored-by: Codex <noreply@openai.com>
jif ·
Adam Perry @ OpenAI ·
Matthew Zeng ·
Charlie Marsh ·