Owen Lin
ea56186c2b
**Motivation**
The `originator` header is important for codex-backend’s Responses API
proxy because it identifies the real end client (codex cli, codex vscode
extension, codex exec, future IDEs) and is used to categorize requests
by client for our enterprise compliance API.
Today the `originator` header is set by either:
- the `CODEX_INTERNAL_ORIGINATOR_OVERRIDE` env var (our VSCode extension
does this)
- calling `set_default_originator()` which sets a global immutable
singleton (`codex exec` does this)
For `codex app-server`, we want the `initialize` JSON-RPC request to set
that header because it is a natural place to do so. Example:
```json
{
"method": "initialize",
"id": 0,
"params": {
"clientInfo": {
"name": "codex_vscode",
"title": "Codex VS Code Extension",
"version": "0.1.0"
}
}
}
```
and when app-server receives that request, it can call
`set_default_originator()`. This is a much more natural interface than
asking third party developers to set an env var.
One hiccup is that `originator()` reads the global singleton and locks
in the value, preventing a later `set_default_originator()` call from
setting it. This would be fine but is brittle, since any codepath that
calls `originator()` before app-server can process an `initialize`
JSON-RPC call would prevent app-server from setting it. This was
actually the case with OTEL initialization which runs on boot, but I
also saw this behavior in certain tests.
Instead, what we now do is:
- [unchanged] If `CODEX_INTERNAL_ORIGINATOR_OVERRIDE` env var is set,
`originator()` would return that value and `set_default_originator()`
with some other value does NOT override it.
- [new] If no env var is set, `originator()` would return the default
value which is `codex_cli_rs` UNTIL `set_default_originator()` is called
once, in which case it is set to the new value and becomes immutable.
Later calls to `set_default_originator()` returns
`SetOriginatorError::AlreadyInitialized`.
**Other notes**
- I updated `codex_core::otel_init::build_provider` to accepts a service
name override, and app-server sends a hardcoded `codex_app_server`
service name to distinguish it from `codex_cli_rs` used by default (e.g.
TUI).
**Next steps**
- Update VSCE to set the proper value for `clientInfo.name` on
`initialize` and drop the `CODEX_INTERNAL_ORIGINATOR_OVERRIDE` env var.
- Delete support for `CODEX_INTERNAL_ORIGINATOR_OVERRIDE` in codex-rs.
Codex CLI (Rust Implementation)
We provide Codex CLI as a standalone, native 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. Output is printed to the terminal directly. You can set the RUST_LOG environment variable to see more about what's going on.
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".
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 to be 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.