When `app/list` is called with `force_refetch=True`, we should seed the
results with what is already cached instead of starting from an empty
list. Otherwise when we send app/list/updated events, the client will
first see an empty list of accessible apps and then get the updated one.
## Why
`suite::v2::app_list::list_apps_uses_thread_feature_flag_when_thread_id_is_provided`
has been flaky in CI. The test exercises `thread/start`, which
initializes `codex_apps`. In CI/Linux, that path can reach OS
keyring-backed MCP OAuth credential lookup (`Codex MCP Credentials`) and
intermittently abort the MCP process (observed stack overflow in
`zbus`), causing the test to fail before the assertion logic runs.
## What Changed
- Updated the test config in
`codex-rs/app-server/tests/suite/v2/app_list.rs` to set
`mcp_oauth_credentials_store = "file"` in both relevant config-writing
paths:
- The in-test config override inside
`list_apps_uses_thread_feature_flag_when_thread_id_is_provided`
- `write_connectors_config(...)`, which is used by the v2 `app_list`
test suite
- This keeps test coverage focused on thread-scoped app feature flags
while removing OS keyring/DBus dependency from this test path.
## How It Was Verified
- `cargo test -p codex-app-server`
- `cargo test -p codex-app-server
list_apps_uses_thread_feature_flag_when_thread_id_is_provided --
--nocapture`
There are two concepts of apps that we load in the harness:
- Directory apps, which is all the apps that the user can install.
- Accessible apps, which is what the user actually installed and can be
$ inserted and be used by the model. These are extracted from the tools
that are loaded through the gateway MCP.
Previously we wait for both sets of apps before returning the full apps
list. Which causes many issues because accessible apps won't be
available to the UI or the model if directory apps aren't loaded or
failed to load.
In this PR we are separating them so that accessible apps can be loaded
separately and are instantly available to be shown in the UI and to be
provided in model context. We also added an app-server event so that
clients can subscribe to also get accessible apps without being blocked
on the full app list.
- [x] Separate accessible apps and directory apps loading.
- [x] `app/list` request will also emit `app/list/updated` notifications
that app-server clients can subscribe. Which allows clients to get
accessible apps list to render in the $ menu without being blocked by
directory apps.
- [x] Cache both accessible and directory apps with 1 hour TTL to avoid
reloading them when creating new threads.
- [x] TUI improvements to redraw $ menu and /apps menu when app list is
updated.
- [x] Support `/apps` slash command to browse the apps in tui.
- [x] Support inserting apps to prompt using `$`.
- [x] Lots of simplification/renaming from connectors to apps.
In order to make Codex work with connectors, we add a built-in gateway
MCP that acts as a transparent proxy between the client and the
connectors. The gateway MCP collects actions that are accessible to the
user and sends them down to the user, when a connector action is chosen
to be called, the client invokes the action through the gateway MCP as
well.
- [x] Add the system built-in gateway MCP to list and run connectors.
- [x] Add the app server methods and protocol
Matthew Zeng ·
Michael Bolin ·