Some MCP servers expose a lot of tools. In those cases, it is reasonable
to allow/denylist tools for Codex to use so it doesn't get overwhelmed
with too many tools.
The new configuration options available in the `mcp_server` toml table
are:
* `enabled_tools`
* `disabled_tools`
Fixes#4796
Tightened the docs so the sandbox guide matches reality, noted the new
tools.view_image toggle next to web search, and linked the README to the
getting-started guide which now owns the familiar tips (backtrack, --cd,
--add-dir, etc.).
Updated the configuration guide so it matches the current CLI behavior.
Clarified the platform-specific default model, explained how custom
model-providers interact with bundled ones, refreshed the streamable
HTTP/MCP section with accurate guidance on the RMCP client and OAuth
flag, and removed stale keys from the reference table.
Update FAQ, improve general structure for config, add more links across
the sections in the documentation, remove out of date and duplicate
content and better explain certain concepts such as approvals and
sandboxing.
Expand the custom prompts documentation and link it from other guides. Show saved prompt metadata in the slash-command popup, with tests covering description fallbacks.
This makes stdio mcp servers more flexible by allowing users to specify
the cwd to run the server command from and adding additional environment
variables to be passed through to the server.
Example config using the test server in this repo:
```toml
[mcp_servers.test_stdio]
cwd = "/Users/<user>/code/codex/codex-rs"
command = "cargo"
args = ["run", "--bin", "test_stdio_server"]
env_vars = ["MCP_TEST_VALUE"]
```
@bolinfest I know you hate these env var tests but let's roll with this
for now. I may take a stab at the env guard + serial macro at some
point.
## Summary
- add a `codex sandbox` subcommand with macOS and Linux targets while
keeping the legacy `codex debug` aliases
- update documentation to highlight the new sandbox entrypoints and
point existing references to the new command
- clarify the core README about the linux sandbox helper alias
## Testing
- just fmt
- just fix -p codex-cli
- cargo test -p codex-cli
------
https://chatgpt.com/codex/tasks/task_i_68e2e00ca1e8832d8bff53aa0b50b49e
Apparently we were not running our `pnpm run prettier` check in CI, so
many files that were covered by the existing Prettier check were not
well-formatted.
This updates CI and formats the files.
This PR adds oauth login support to streamable http servers when
`experimental_use_rmcp_client` is enabled.
This PR is large but represents the minimal amount of work required for
this to work. To keep this PR smaller, login can only be done with
`codex mcp login` and `codex mcp logout` but it doesn't appear in `/mcp`
or `codex mcp list` yet. Fingers crossed that this is the last large MCP
PR and that subsequent PRs can be smaller.
Under the hood, credentials are stored using platform credential
managers using the [keyring crate](https://crates.io/crates/keyring).
When the keyring isn't available, it falls back to storing credentials
in `CODEX_HOME/.credentials.json` which is consistent with how other
coding agents handle authentication.
I tested this on macOS, Windows, WSL (ubuntu), and Linux. I wasn't able
to test the dbus store on linux but did verify that the fallback works.
One quirk is that if you have credentials, during development, every
build will have its own ad-hoc binary so the keyring won't recognize the
reader as being the same as the write so it may ask for the user's
password. I may add an override to disable this or allow
users/enterprises to opt-out of the keyring storage if it causes issues.
<img width="5064" height="686" alt="CleanShot 2025-09-30 at 19 31 40"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9573f9b4-07f1-4160-83b8-2920db287e2d"
/>
<img width="745" height="486" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9562649b-ea5f-4f22-ace2-d0cb438b143e"
/>
This updates `codex exec` so that, by default, most of the agent's
activity is written to stderr so that only the final agent message is
written to stdout. This makes it easier to pipe `codex exec` into
another tool without extra filtering.
I introduced `#![deny(clippy::print_stdout)]` to help enforce this
change and renamed the `ts_println!()` macro to `ts_msg()` because (1)
it no longer calls `println!()` and (2), `ts_eprintln!()` seemed too
long of a name.
While here, this also adds `-o` as an alias for `--output-last-message`.
Fixes https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/1670
Previously, users could supply their API key directly via:
```shell
codex login --api-key KEY
```
but this has the drawback that `KEY` is more likely to end up in shell
history, can be read from `/proc`, etc.
This PR removes support for `--api-key` and replaces it with
`--with-api-key`, which reads the key from stdin, so either of these are
better options:
```
printenv OPENAI_API_KEY | codex login --with-api-key
codex login --with-api-key < my_key.txt
```
Other CLIs, such as `gh auth login --with-token`, follow the same
practice.
This is a very large PR with some non-backwards-compatible changes.
Historically, `codex mcp` (or `codex mcp serve`) started a JSON-RPC-ish
server that had two overlapping responsibilities:
- Running an MCP server, providing some basic tool calls.
- Running the app server used to power experiences such as the VS Code
extension.
This PR aims to separate these into distinct concepts:
- `codex mcp-server` for the MCP server
- `codex app-server` for the "application server"
Note `codex mcp` still exists because it already has its own subcommands
for MCP management (`list`, `add`, etc.)
The MCP logic continues to live in `codex-rs/mcp-server` whereas the
refactored app server logic is in the new `codex-rs/app-server` folder.
Note that most of the existing integration tests in
`codex-rs/mcp-server/tests/suite` were actually for the app server, so
all the tests have been moved with the exception of
`codex-rs/mcp-server/tests/suite/mod.rs`.
Because this is already a large diff, I tried not to change more than I
had to, so `codex-rs/app-server/tests/common/mcp_process.rs` still uses
the name `McpProcess` for now, but I will do some mechanical renamings
to things like `AppServer` in subsequent PRs.
While `mcp-server` and `app-server` share some overlapping functionality
(like reading streams of JSONL and dispatching based on message types)
and some differences (completely different message types), I ended up
doing a bit of copypasta between the two crates, as both have somewhat
similar `message_processor.rs` and `outgoing_message.rs` files for now,
though I expect them to diverge more in the near future.
One material change is that of the initialize handshake for `codex
app-server`, as we no longer use the MCP types for that handshake.
Instead, we update `codex-rs/protocol/src/mcp_protocol.rs` to add an
`Initialize` variant to `ClientRequest`, which takes the `ClientInfo`
object we need to update the `USER_AGENT_SUFFIX` in
`codex-rs/app-server/src/message_processor.rs`.
One other material change is in
`codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs` where I eliminated
a use of the `send_event_as_notification()` method I am generally trying
to deprecate (because it blindly maps an `EventMsg` into a
`JSONNotification`) in favor of `send_server_notification()`, which
takes a `ServerNotification`, as that is intended to be a custom enum of
all notification types supported by the app server. So to make this
update, I had to introduce a new variant of `ServerNotification`,
`SessionConfigured`, which is a non-backwards compatible change with the
old `codex mcp`, and clients will have to be updated after the next
release that contains this PR. Note that
`codex-rs/app-server/tests/suite/list_resume.rs` also had to be update
to reflect this change.
I introduced `codex-rs/utils/json-to-toml/src/lib.rs` as a small utility
crate to avoid some of the copying between `mcp-server` and
`app-server`.
### Title
## otel
Codex can emit [OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io/) **log events**
that
describe each run: outbound API requests, streamed responses, user
input,
tool-approval decisions, and the result of every tool invocation. Export
is
**disabled by default** so local runs remain self-contained. Opt in by
adding an
`[otel]` table and choosing an exporter.
```toml
[otel]
environment = "staging" # defaults to "dev"
exporter = "none" # defaults to "none"; set to otlp-http or otlp-grpc to send events
log_user_prompt = false # defaults to false; redact prompt text unless explicitly enabled
```
Codex tags every exported event with `service.name = "codex-cli"`, the
CLI
version, and an `env` attribute so downstream collectors can distinguish
dev/staging/prod traffic. Only telemetry produced inside the
`codex_otel`
crate—the events listed below—is forwarded to the exporter.
### Event catalog
Every event shares a common set of metadata fields: `event.timestamp`,
`conversation.id`, `app.version`, `auth_mode` (when available),
`user.account_id` (when available), `terminal.type`, `model`, and
`slug`.
With OTEL enabled Codex emits the following event types (in addition to
the
metadata above):
- `codex.api_request`
- `cf_ray` (optional)
- `attempt`
- `duration_ms`
- `http.response.status_code` (optional)
- `error.message` (failures)
- `codex.sse_event`
- `event.kind`
- `duration_ms`
- `error.message` (failures)
- `input_token_count` (completion only)
- `output_token_count` (completion only)
- `cached_token_count` (completion only, optional)
- `reasoning_token_count` (completion only, optional)
- `tool_token_count` (completion only)
- `codex.user_prompt`
- `prompt_length`
- `prompt` (redacted unless `log_user_prompt = true`)
- `codex.tool_decision`
- `tool_name`
- `call_id`
- `decision` (`approved`, `approved_for_session`, `denied`, or `abort`)
- `source` (`config` or `user`)
- `codex.tool_result`
- `tool_name`
- `call_id`
- `arguments`
- `duration_ms` (execution time for the tool)
- `success` (`"true"` or `"false"`)
- `output`
### Choosing an exporter
Set `otel.exporter` to control where events go:
- `none` – leaves instrumentation active but skips exporting. This is
the
default.
- `otlp-http` – posts OTLP log records to an OTLP/HTTP collector.
Specify the
endpoint, protocol, and headers your collector expects:
```toml
[otel]
exporter = { otlp-http = {
endpoint = "https://otel.example.com/v1/logs",
protocol = "binary",
headers = { "x-otlp-api-key" = "${OTLP_TOKEN}" }
}}
```
- `otlp-grpc` – streams OTLP log records over gRPC. Provide the endpoint
and any
metadata headers:
```toml
[otel]
exporter = { otlp-grpc = {
endpoint = "https://otel.example.com:4317",
headers = { "x-otlp-meta" = "abc123" }
}}
```
If the exporter is `none` nothing is written anywhere; otherwise you
must run or point to your
own collector. All exporters run on a background batch worker that is
flushed on
shutdown.
If you build Codex from source the OTEL crate is still behind an `otel`
feature
flag; the official prebuilt binaries ship with the feature enabled. When
the
feature is disabled the telemetry hooks become no-ops so the CLI
continues to
function without the extra dependencies.
---------
Co-authored-by: Anton Panasenko <apanasenko@openai.com>
Adding the ability to resume conversations.
we have one verb `resume`.
Behavior:
`tui`:
`codex resume`: opens session picker
`codex resume --last`: continue last message
`codex resume <session id>`: continue conversation with `session id`
`exec`:
`codex resume --last`: continue last conversation
`codex resume <session id>`: continue conversation with `session id`
Implementation:
- I added a function to find the path in `~/.codex/sessions/` with a
`UUID`. This is helpful in resuming with session id.
- Added the above mentioned flags
- Added lots of testing
Adds further information on how to get started with `codex mcp`:
- Tool details and parameter references
- Quickstart with example using MCP inspector.
This PR does the following:
* Adds the ability to paste or type an API key.
* Removes the `preferred_auth_method` config option. The last login
method is always persisted in auth.json, so this isn't needed.
* If OPENAI_API_KEY env variable is defined, the value is used to
prepopulate the new UI. The env variable is otherwise ignored by the
CLI.
* Adds a new MCP server entry point "login_api_key" so we can implement
this same API key behavior for the VS Code extension.
<img width="473" height="140" alt="Screenshot 2025-09-04 at 3 51 04 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c11bbd5b-8a4d-4d71-90fd-34130460f9d9"
/>
<img width="726" height="254" alt="Screenshot 2025-09-04 at 3 51 32 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6cc76b34-309a-4387-acbc-15ee5c756db9"
/>
* Clarify how the shell's handling of quotes affects the interpretation
of TOML values in `--config`/`-c`
* Provide examples of the right way to pass complex TOML values
* The previous explanation incorrectly demonstrated how to pass TOML
values to `--config`/`-c` (misunderstanding how the shell’s handling of
quotes affects things) and would result in invalid invocations of
`codex`.
Seeing timeouts on certain, slow mcp server starting up when codex is
invoked. Before this change, the timeout was a hard-coded 10s. Need the
ability to define arbitrary timeouts on a per-server basis.
## Summary of changes
- Add startup_timeout_ms to McpServerConfig with 10s default when unset
- Use per-server timeout for initialize and tools/list
- Introduce ManagedClient to store client and timeout; rename
LIST_TOOLS_TIMEOUT to DEFAULT_STARTUP_TIMEOUT
- Update docs to document startup_timeout_ms with example and options
table
---------
Co-authored-by: Matthew Dolan <dolan-openai@users.noreply.github.com>
No more picking out version numbers by hand! Now we let the script do
it:
```
$ ./codex-rs/scripts/create_github_release --dry-run --publish-alpha
Running gh api GET /repos/openai/codex/releases/latest
Running gh api GET /repos/openai/codex/releases?per_page=100
Publishing version 0.31.0-alpha.3
$ ./codex-rs/scripts/create_github_release --dry-run --publish-release
Running gh api GET /repos/openai/codex/releases/latest
Publishing version 0.31.0
```
---
[//]: # (BEGIN SAPLING FOOTER)
Stack created with [Sapling](https://sapling-scm.com). Best reviewed
with [ReviewStack](https://reviewstack.dev/openai/codex/pull/3230).
* __->__ #3231
* #3230
* #3228
* #3226
When item ids are sent to Responses API it will load them from the
database ignoring the provided values. This adds extra latency.
Not having the mode to store requests also allows us to simplify the
code.
## Breaking change
The `disable_response_storage` configuration option is removed.
