Eric Traut
6784db51c0
## Why Users have asked for a `/ide` command in the TUI so Codex can use the active IDE session for live context such as the current file, open tabs, and selected ranges. We already support a similar feature in the Codex desktop app, so bringing it to the TUI makes sense. One subtle compatibility constraint is that the injected prompt wrapper and transcript stripping should match the desktop app and IDE extension. By using the same `## My request for Codex:` delimiter and hiding the injected context from transcript rendering the same way, threads created in the TUI render correctly in desktop and IDE surfaces, and threads created there replay correctly in the TUI, even when IDE context was included. Addresses https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/13834. ## What changed ### Summary This PR consists of four four pieces: 1. An IPC client that uses a socket (Mac/Linux) or named pipe (Windows) to talk to the IDE Extension 2. Logic that establishes the IPC connection and requests IDE context (open files, selection) on demand 3. Logic that injects this context into the user prompt (using the same technique as the desktop app) and hides the added context when rendering the prompt in the TUI transcript 4. A new slash command for enabling/disabling this mode and text within the footer to indicate when it's enabled ### Details - Added `/ide [on|off|status]` to the TUI, with bare `/ide` toggling IDE context on or off. - Added a Rust IDE context client that connects to the local Codex IDE IPC route as a client and requests context from the IDE extension flow. - Injected IDE context using the same prompt delimiter and transcript-stripping convention as the desktop app and IDE extension so shared threads render consistently across surfaces. - Added an `IDE context` status-line indicator while the feature is active and cleared it when enabling or fetching context fails. - Added handling for multiple selection ranges, oversized selections, interleaved IPC messages, and transient reconnect timing after quick toggles. ## Verification Did extensive manual testing in addition to running automated unit and regression tests. To test: - Launch VS Code (or Cursor) with the IDE extension. - Open one or more files in the IDE and select a range of text within one of them. - Start the TUI. - Ask the agent which files you have open in your IDE, and it should say that it does not know. - Enable `/ide` mode; note that `IDE context` appears in the lower right. - Ask the agent what files you have open in your IDE and what text is selected.
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 [--log-denials] [COMMAND]...
# Linux
codex sandbox linux [COMMAND]...
# Windows
codex sandbox windows [COMMAND]...
# Legacy aliases
codex debug seatbelt [--log-denials] [COMMAND]...
codex debug landlock [COMMAND]...
To try a writable legacy sandbox mode with these commands, pass an explicit config override such
as -c 'sandbox_mode="workspace-write"'.
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.