Eric Traut
4e0cf945b7
## Why Several bug reports describe thread shutdown (including subagent threads) leaving stdio MCP server processes behind. These reports all point at the same lifecycle gap: Codex launches stdio MCP servers, but the session-level shutdown path does not explicitly close MCP clients or terminate the server process tree. Fixes #12491 Fixes #12976 Fixes #18881 Fixes #19469 ## History This is best understood as a regression/coverage gap in MCP session lifecycle management, not as stdio MCP cleanup being absent all along. #10710 added process-group cleanup for stdio MCP servers, but that cleanup only runs when the `RmcpClient`/transport is dropped. The older reports (#12491 and #12976) came after that cleanup existed, which suggests the remaining problem was that some higher-level shutdown paths kept the MCP manager alive or replaced it without explicitly draining clients. The newer reports (#18881 and #19469) exposed the same family around manager replacement and shutdown. ## What changed - Added an explicit stdio MCP process handle in `codex-rmcp-client` so local MCP servers terminate their process group and executor-backed MCP servers call the executor process terminator. - Added `RmcpClient::shutdown()` and manager-level MCP shutdown draining so session shutdown, channel-close fallback, MCP refresh, and connector probing stop owned MCP clients. - Added regression coverage that starts a stdio MCP server, begins an in-flight blocking tool call, shuts down the client, and asserts the server process exits. ## Verification - `cargo test -p codex-rmcp-client` - `cargo test -p codex-mcp` - `just fix -p codex-rmcp-client` - `just fix -p codex-mcp` - `just fix -p codex-core` - Manual before/after validation with a temporary repro script: - Pre-fix binary from `HEAD^` (`fed0a8f4fa`): reproduced the leak with surviving MCP server and child PIDs, `survivors=[77583, 77592]`, `leaked=true`. - Post-fix binary from this branch (`67e318148b`): verified both MCP processes were gone after interrupting `codex exec`, `survivors=[]`, `leaked=false`.
Codex CLI (Rust Implementation)
We provide Codex CLI as a standalone executable to ensure a zero-dependency install.
Installing Codex
Today, the easiest way to install Codex is via npm:
npm i -g @openai/codex
codex
You can also install via Homebrew (brew install --cask codex) or download a platform-specific release directly from our GitHub Releases.
Documentation quickstart
- First run with Codex? Start with
docs/getting-started.md(links to the walkthrough for prompts, keyboard shortcuts, and session management). - Want deeper control? See
docs/config.mdanddocs/install.md.
What's new in the Rust CLI
The Rust implementation is now the maintained Codex CLI and serves as the default experience. It includes a number of features that the legacy TypeScript CLI never supported.
Config
Codex supports a rich set of configuration options. Note that the Rust CLI uses config.toml instead of config.json. See docs/config.md for details.
Model Context Protocol Support
MCP client
Codex CLI functions as an MCP client that allows the Codex CLI and IDE extension to connect to MCP servers on startup. See the configuration documentation for details.
MCP server (experimental)
Codex can be launched as an MCP server by running codex mcp-server. This allows other MCP clients to use Codex as a tool for another agent.
Use the @modelcontextprotocol/inspector to try it out:
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector codex mcp-server
Use codex mcp to add/list/get/remove MCP server launchers defined in config.toml, and codex mcp-server to run the MCP server directly.
Notifications
You can enable notifications by configuring a script that is run whenever the agent finishes a turn. The notify documentation includes a detailed example that explains how to get desktop notifications via terminal-notifier on macOS. When Codex detects that it is running under WSL 2 inside Windows Terminal (WT_SESSION is set), the TUI automatically falls back to native Windows toast notifications so approval prompts and completed turns surface even though Windows Terminal does not implement OSC 9.
codex exec to run Codex programmatically/non-interactively
To run Codex non-interactively, run codex exec PROMPT (you can also pass the prompt via stdin) and Codex will work on your task until it decides that it is done and exits. If you provide both a prompt argument and piped stdin, Codex appends stdin as a <stdin> block after the prompt so patterns like echo "my output" | codex exec "Summarize this concisely" work naturally. Output is printed to the terminal directly. You can set the RUST_LOG environment variable to see more about what's going on.
Use codex exec --ephemeral ... to run without persisting session rollout files to disk.
Experimenting with the Codex Sandbox
To test to see what happens when a command is run under the sandbox provided by Codex, we provide the following subcommands in Codex CLI:
# macOS
codex sandbox macos [--full-auto] [--log-denials] [COMMAND]...
# Linux
codex sandbox linux [--full-auto] [COMMAND]...
# Windows
codex sandbox windows [--full-auto] [COMMAND]...
# Legacy aliases
codex debug seatbelt [--full-auto] [--log-denials] [COMMAND]...
codex debug landlock [--full-auto] [COMMAND]...
Selecting a sandbox policy via --sandbox
The Rust CLI exposes a dedicated --sandbox (-s) flag that lets you pick the sandbox policy without having to reach for the generic -c/--config option:
# Run Codex with the default, read-only sandbox
codex --sandbox read-only
# Allow the agent to write within the current workspace while still blocking network access
codex --sandbox workspace-write
# Danger! Disable sandboxing entirely (only do this if you are already running in a container or other isolated env)
codex --sandbox danger-full-access
The same setting can be persisted in ~/.codex/config.toml via the top-level sandbox_mode = "MODE" key, e.g. sandbox_mode = "workspace-write".
In workspace-write, Codex also includes ~/.codex/memories in its writable roots so memory maintenance does not require an extra approval.
Code Organization
This folder is the root of a Cargo workspace. It contains quite a bit of experimental code, but here are the key crates:
core/contains the business logic for Codex. Ultimately, we hope this becomes a library crate that is generally useful for building other Rust/native applications that use Codex.exec/"headless" CLI for use in automation.tui/CLI that launches a fullscreen TUI built with Ratatui.cli/CLI multitool that provides the aforementioned CLIs via subcommands.
If you want to contribute or inspect behavior in detail, start by reading the module-level README.md files under each crate and run the project workspace from the top-level codex-rs directory so shared config, features, and build scripts stay aligned.