# External (non-OpenAI) Pull Request Requirements
Before opening this Pull Request, please read the "Contributing" section
of the README or your PR may be closed:
https://github.com/openai/codex#contributing
If your PR conforms to our contribution guidelines, replace this text
with a detailed and high quality description of your changes.
This PR cleans up the monolithic README by breaking it into a set
navigable pages under docs/ (install, getting started, configuration,
authentication, sandboxing and approvals, platform details, FAQ, ZDR,
contributing, license). The top‑level README is now more concise and
intuitive, (with corrected screenshots).
It also consolidates overlapping content from codex-rs/README.md into
the top‑level docs and updates links accordingly. The codex-rs README
remains in place for now as a pointer and for continuity.
Finally, added an extensive config reference table at the bottom of
docs/config.md.
---------
Co-authored-by: easong-openai <easong@openai.com>
On a high-level, we try to design `config.toml` so that you don't have
to "comment out a lot of stuff" when testing different options.
Previously, defining a sandbox policy was somewhat at odds with this
principle because you would define the policy as attributes of
`[sandbox]` like so:
```toml
[sandbox]
mode = "workspace-write"
writable_roots = [ "/tmp" ]
```
but if you wanted to temporarily change to a read-only sandbox, you
might feel compelled to modify your file to be:
```toml
[sandbox]
mode = "read-only"
# mode = "workspace-write"
# writable_roots = [ "/tmp" ]
```
Technically, commenting out `writable_roots` would not be strictly
necessary, as `mode = "read-only"` would ignore `writable_roots`, but
it's still a reasonable thing to do to keep things tidy.
Currently, the various values for `mode` do not support that many
attributes, so this is not that hard to maintain, but one could imagine
this becoming more complex in the future.
In this PR, we change Codex CLI so that it no longer recognizes
`[sandbox]`. Instead, it introduces a top-level option, `sandbox_mode`,
and `[sandbox_workspace_write]` is used to further configure the sandbox
when when `sandbox_mode = "workspace-write"` is used:
```toml
sandbox_mode = "workspace-write"
[sandbox_workspace_write]
writable_roots = [ "/tmp" ]
```
This feels a bit more future-proof in that it is less tedious to
configure different sandboxes:
```toml
sandbox_mode = "workspace-write"
[sandbox_read_only]
# read-only options here...
[sandbox_workspace_write]
writable_roots = [ "/tmp" ]
[sandbox_danger_full_access]
# danger-full-access options here...
```
In this scheme, you never need to comment out the configuration for an
individual sandbox type: you only need to redefine `sandbox_mode`.
Relatedly, previous to this change, a user had to do `-c
sandbox.mode=read-only` to change the mode on the command line. With
this change, things are arguably a bit cleaner because the equivalent
option is `-c sandbox_mode=read-only` (and now `-c
sandbox_workspace_write=...` can be set separately).
Though more importantly, we introduce the `-s/--sandbox` option to the
CLI, which maps directly to `sandbox_mode` in `config.toml`, making
config override behavior easier to reason about. Moreover, as you can
see in the updates to the various Markdown files, it is much easier to
explain how to configure sandboxing when things like `--sandbox
read-only` can be used as an example.
Relatedly, this cleanup also made it straightforward to add support for
a `sandbox` option for Codex when used as an MCP server (see the changes
to `mcp-server/src/codex_tool_config.rs`).
Fixes https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/1248.
To date, when handling `shell` and `local_shell` tool calls, we were
spawning new processes using the environment inherited from the Codex
process itself. This means that the sensitive `OPENAI_API_KEY` that
Codex needs to talk to OpenAI models was made available to everything
run by `shell` and `local_shell`. While there are cases where that might
be useful, it does not seem like a good default.
This PR introduces a complex `shell_environment_policy` config option to
control the `env` used with these tool calls. It is inevitably a bit
complex so that it is possible to override individual components of the
policy so without having to restate the entire thing.
Details are in the updated `README.md` in this PR, but here is the
relevant bit that explains the individual fields of
`shell_environment_policy`:
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| ------------------------- | -------------------------- | ------- |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| `inherit` | string | `core` | Starting template for the
environment:<br>`core` (`HOME`, `PATH`, `USER`, …), `all` (clone full
parent env), or `none` (start empty). |
| `ignore_default_excludes` | boolean | `false` | When `false`, Codex
removes any var whose **name** contains `KEY`, `SECRET`, or `TOKEN`
(case-insensitive) before other rules run. |
| `exclude` | array<string> | `[]` | Case-insensitive glob
patterns to drop after the default filter.<br>Examples: `"AWS_*"`,
`"AZURE_*"`. |
| `set` | table<string,string> | `{}` | Explicit key/value
overrides or additions – always win over inherited values. |
| `include_only` | array<string> | `[]` | If non-empty, a
whitelist of patterns; only variables that match _one_ pattern survive
the final step. (Generally used with `inherit = "all"`.) |
In particular, note that the default is `inherit = "core"`, so:
* if you have extra env variables that you want to inherit from the
parent process, use `inherit = "all"` and then specify `include_only`
* if you have extra env variables where you want to hardcode the values,
the default `inherit = "core"` will work fine, but then you need to
specify `set`
This configuration is not battle-tested, so we will probably still have
to play with it a bit. `core/src/exec_env.rs` has the critical business
logic as well as unit tests.
Though if nothing else, previous to this change:
```
$ cargo run --bin codex -- debug seatbelt -- printenv OPENAI_API_KEY
# ...prints OPENAI_API_KEY...
```
But after this change it does not print anything (as desired).
One final thing to call out about this PR is that the
`configure_command!` macro we use in `core/src/exec.rs` has to do some
complex logic with respect to how it builds up the `env` for the process
being spawned under Landlock/seccomp. Specifically, doing
`cmd.env_clear()` followed by `cmd.envs(&$env_map)` (which is arguably
the most intuitive way to do it) caused the Landlock unit tests to fail
because the processes spawned by the unit tests started failing in
unexpected ways! If we forgo `env_clear()` in favor of updating env vars
one at a time, the tests still pass. The comment in the code talks about
this a bit, and while I would like to investigate this more, I need to
move on for the moment, but I do plan to come back to it to fully
understand what is going on. For example, this suggests that we might
not be able to spawn a C program that calls `env_clear()`, which would
be...weird. We may still have to fiddle with our Landlock config if that
is the case.
I did a bit of research to understand why I could not use my mouse to
drag to select text to copy to the clipboard in iTerm.
Apparently https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/641 to enable mousewheel
scrolling broke this functionality. It seems that, unless we put in a
bit of effort, we can have drag-to-select or scrolling, but not both.
Though if you know the trick to hold down `Option` will dragging with
the mouse in iTerm, you can probably get by with this. (I did not know
about this option prior to researching this issue.)
Nevertheless, users may still prefer to disable mouse capture
altogether, so this PR introduces:
* the ability to set `tui.disable_mouse_capture = true` in `config.toml`
to disable mouse capture
* a new command, `/toggle-mouse-mode` to toggle mouse capture
This is a large change to support a "history" feature like you would
expect in a shell like Bash.
History events are recorded in `$CODEX_HOME/history.jsonl`. Because it
is a JSONL file, it is straightforward to append new entries (as opposed
to the TypeScript file that uses `$CODEX_HOME/history.json`, so to be
valid JSON, each new entry entails rewriting the entire file). Because
it is possible for there to be multiple instances of Codex CLI writing
to `history.jsonl` at once, we use advisory file locking when working
with `history.jsonl` in `codex-rs/core/src/message_history.rs`.
Because we believe history is a sufficiently useful feature, we enable
it by default. Though to provide some safety, we set the file
permissions of `history.jsonl` to be `o600` so that other users on the
system cannot read the user's history. We do not yet support a default
list of `SENSITIVE_PATTERNS` as the TypeScript CLI does:
3fdf9df133/codex-cli/src/utils/storage/command-history.ts (L10-L17)
We are going to take a more conservative approach to this list in the
Rust CLI. For example, while `/\b[A-Za-z0-9-_]{20,}\b/` might exclude
sensitive information like API tokens, it would also exclude valuable
information such as references to Git commits.
As noted in the updated documentation, users can opt-out of history by
adding the following to `config.toml`:
```toml
[history]
persistence = "none"
```
Because `history.jsonl` could, in theory, be quite large, we take a[n
arguably overly pedantic] approach in reading history entries into
memory. Specifically, we start by telling the client the current number
of entries in the history file (`history_entry_count`) as well as the
inode (`history_log_id`) of `history.jsonl` (see the new fields on
`SessionConfiguredEvent`).
The client is responsible for keeping new entries in memory to create a
"local history," but if the user hits up enough times to go "past" the
end of local history, then the client should use the new
`GetHistoryEntryRequest` in the protocol to fetch older entries.
Specifically, it should pass the `history_log_id` it was given
originally and work backwards from `history_entry_count`. (It should
really fetch history in batches rather than one-at-a-time, but that is
something we can improve upon in subsequent PRs.)
The motivation behind this crazy scheme is that it is designed to defend
against:
* The `history.jsonl` being truncated during the session such that the
index into the history is no longer consistent with what had been read
up to that point. We do not yet have logic to enforce a `max_bytes` for
`history.jsonl`, but once we do, we will aspire to implement it in a way
that should result in a new inode for the file on most systems.
* New items from concurrent Codex CLI sessions amending to the history.
Because, in absence of truncation, `history.jsonl` is an append-only
log, so long as the client reads backwards from `history_entry_count`,
it should always get a consistent view of history. (That said, it will
not be able to read _new_ commands from concurrent sessions, but perhaps
we will introduce a `/` command to reload latest history or something
down the road.)
Admittedly, my testing of this feature thus far has been fairly light. I
expect we will find bugs and introduce enhancements/fixes going forward.
More about codespell: https://github.com/codespell-project/codespell .
I personally introduced it to dozens if not hundreds of projects already
and so far only positive feedback.
CI workflow has 'permissions' set only to 'read' so also should be safe.
Let me know if just want to take typo fixes in and get rid of the CI
---------
Signed-off-by: Yaroslav O. Halchenko <debian@onerussian.com>
This introduces a much-needed "profile" concept where users can specify
a collection of options under one name and then pass that via
`--profile` to the CLI.
This PR introduces the `ConfigProfile` struct and makes it a field of
`CargoToml`. It further updates
`Config::load_from_base_config_with_overrides()` to respect
`ConfigProfile`, overriding default values where appropriate. A detailed
unit test is added at the end of `config.rs` to verify this behavior.
Details on how to use this feature have also been added to
`codex-rs/README.md`.
The TypeScript CLI already has support for including the contents of
`AGENTS.md` in the instructions sent with the first turn of a
conversation. This PR brings this functionality to the Rust CLI.
To be considered, `AGENTS.md` must be in the `cwd` of the session, or in
one of the parent folders up to a Git/filesystem root (whichever is
encountered first).
By default, a maximum of 32 KiB of `AGENTS.md` will be included, though
this is configurable using the new-in-this-PR `project_doc_max_bytes`
option in `config.toml`.
This is a substantial PR to add support for the chat completions API,
which in turn makes it possible to use non-OpenAI model providers (just
like in the TypeScript CLI):
* It moves a number of structs from `client.rs` to `client_common.rs` so
they can be shared.
* It introduces support for the chat completions API in
`chat_completions.rs`.
* It updates `ModelProviderInfo` so that `env_key` is `Option<String>`
instead of `String` (for e.g., ollama) and adds a `wire_api` field
* It updates `client.rs` to choose between `stream_responses()` and
`stream_chat_completions()` based on the `wire_api` for the
`ModelProviderInfo`
* It updates the `exec` and TUI CLIs to no longer fail if the
`OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable is not set
* It updates the TUI so that `EventMsg::Error` is displayed more
prominently when it occurs, particularly now that it is important to
alert users to the `CodexErr::EnvVar` variant.
* `CodexErr::EnvVar` was updated to include an optional `instructions`
field so we can preserve the behavior where we direct users to
https://platform.openai.com if `OPENAI_API_KEY` is not set.
* Cleaned up the "welcome message" in the TUI to ensure the model
provider is displayed.
* Updated the docs in `codex-rs/README.md`.
To exercise the chat completions API from OpenAI models, I added the
following to my `config.toml`:
```toml
model = "gpt-4o"
model_provider = "openai-chat-completions"
[model_providers.openai-chat-completions]
name = "OpenAI using Chat Completions"
base_url = "https://api.openai.com/v1"
env_key = "OPENAI_API_KEY"
wire_api = "chat"
```
Though to test a non-OpenAI provider, I installed ollama with mistral
locally on my Mac because ChatGPT said that would be a good match for my
hardware:
```shell
brew install ollama
ollama serve
ollama pull mistral
```
Then I added the following to my `~/.codex/config.toml`:
```toml
model = "mistral"
model_provider = "ollama"
```
Note this code could certainly use more test coverage, but I want to get
this in so folks can start playing with it.
For reference, I believe https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/247 was
roughly the comparable PR on the TypeScript side.
This adds initial support for MCP servers in the style of Claude Desktop
and Cursor. Note this PR is the bare minimum to get things working end
to end: all configured MCP servers are launched every time Codex is run,
there is no recovery for MCP servers that crash, etc.
(Also, I took some shortcuts to change some fields of `Session` to be
`pub(crate)`, which also means there are circular deps between
`codex.rs` and `mcp_tool_call.rs`, but I will clean that up in a
subsequent PR.)
`codex-rs/README.md` is updated as part of this PR to explain how to use
this feature. There is a bit of plumbing to route the new settings from
`Config` to the business logic in `codex.rs`. The most significant
chunks for new code are in `mcp_connection_manager.rs` (which defines
the `McpConnectionManager` struct) and `mcp_tool_call.rs`, which is
responsible for tool calls.
This PR also introduces new `McpToolCallBegin` and `McpToolCallEnd`
event types to the protocol, but does not add any handlers for them.
(See https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/836 for initial usage.)
To test, I added the following to my `~/.codex/config.toml`:
```toml
# Local build of https://github.com/hideya/mcp-server-weather-js
[mcp_servers.weather]
command = "/Users/mbolin/code/mcp-server-weather-js/dist/index.js"
args = []
```
And then I ran the following:
```
codex-rs$ cargo run --bin codex exec 'what is the weather in san francisco'
[2025-05-06T22:40:05] Task started: 1
[2025-05-06T22:40:18] Agent message: Here’s the latest National Weather Service forecast for San Francisco (downtown, near 37.77° N, 122.42° W):
This Afternoon (Tue):
• Sunny, high near 69 °F
• West-southwest wind around 12 mph
Tonight:
• Partly cloudy, low around 52 °F
• SW wind 7–10 mph
...
```
Note that Codex itself is not able to make network calls, so it would
not normally be able to get live weather information like this. However,
the weather MCP is [currently] not run under the Codex sandbox, so it is
able to hit `api.weather.gov` and fetch current weather information.
---
[//]: # (BEGIN SAPLING FOOTER)
Stack created with [Sapling](https://sapling-scm.com). Best reviewed
with [ReviewStack](https://reviewstack.dev/openai/codex/pull/829).
* #836
* __->__ #829
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/793 had important information on
the `notify` config option that seemed worth memorializing, so this PR
updates the documentation about all of the configurable options in
`~/.codex/config.toml`.
@oai-ragona and I discussed it, and we feel the REPL crate has served
its purpose, so we're going to delete the code and future archaeologists
can find it in Git history.
Originally, the `interactive` crate was going to be a placeholder for
building out a UX that was comparable to that of the existing TypeScript
CLI. Though after researching how Ratatui works, that seems difficult to
do because it is designed around the idea that it will redraw the full
screen buffer each time (and so any scrolling should be "internal" to
your Ratatui app) whereas the TypeScript CLI expects to render the full
history of the conversation every time(*) (which is why you can use your
terminal scrollbar to scroll it).
While it is possible to use Ratatui in a way that acts more like what
the TypeScript CLI is doing, it is awkward and seemingly results in
tedious code, so I think we should abandon that approach. As such, this
PR deletes the `interactive/` folder and the code that depended on it.
Further, since we added support for mousewheel scrolling in the TUI in
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/641, it certainly feels much better
and the need for scroll support via the terminal scrollbar is greatly
diminished. This is now a more appropriate default UX for the
"multitool" CLI.
(*) Incidentally, I haven't verified this, but I think this results in
O(N^2) work in rendering, which seems potentially problematic for long
conversations.
As stated in `codex-rs/README.md`:
Today, Codex CLI is written in TypeScript and requires Node.js 22+ to
run it. For a number of users, this runtime requirement inhibits
adoption: they would be better served by a standalone executable. As
maintainers, we want Codex to run efficiently in a wide range of
environments with minimal overhead. We also want to take advantage of
operating system-specific APIs to provide better sandboxing, where
possible.
To that end, we are moving forward with a Rust implementation of Codex
CLI contained in this folder, which has the following benefits:
- The CLI compiles to small, standalone, platform-specific binaries.
- Can make direct, native calls to
[seccomp](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/seccomp.2.html) and
[landlock](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/landlock.7.html) in
order to support sandboxing on Linux.
- No runtime garbage collection, resulting in lower memory consumption
and better, more predictable performance.
Currently, the Rust implementation is materially behind the TypeScript
implementation in functionality, so continue to use the TypeScript
implmentation for the time being. We will publish native executables via
GitHub Releases as soon as we feel the Rust version is usable.
