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codex
I’m going to scan the workspace and Cargo manifests to see build profiles and
dependencies that impact binary size. Then I’ll summarize the main causes.

_
  ✓ ls -la
  └ total 6696
    drwxr-xr-x@ 39 easong  staff     1248 Aug  9 08:49 .
    drwxr-xr-x@ 29 easong  staff      928 Aug  9 08:50 ..
    -rw-r--r--@  1 easong  staff    10244 Aug  8 21:13 .DS_Store
    -rw-r--r--@  1 easong  staff      212 Aug  4 18:49 .gitignore
… +30 lines
    -rw-r--r--@  1 easong  staff     9971 Aug  8 23:07 simpler.md
    drwxr-xr-x@  6 easong  staff      192 Aug  4 22:40 target
    drwxr-xr-x@  6 easong  staff      192 Aug  7 19:20 tui
    -rw-r--r--@  1 easong  staff     8639 Aug  6 23:30 typewriter.md
    -rw-r--r--@  1 easong  staff     7673 Aug  6 21:58 wrap-plan.md
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' Cargo.toml
  └ [workspace]
    members = [
        "ansi-escape",
        "apply-patch",
        "arg0",
… +38 lines
    codegen-units = 1

    [patch.crates-io]
    # ratatui = { path = "../../ratatui" }
    ratatui = { git = "https://github.com/nornagon/ratatui", branch =
"nornagon-v0.29.0-patch" }
  ✓ for d in ansi-escape apply-patch arg0 cli common core exec execpolicy
file-search linux-sandbox login mcp-client mcp-server mcp-types ollama tui; do
echo "--- $d/Cargo.toml"; sed -n '1,200p' $d/Cargo.toml; echo; done
  └ --- ansi-escape/Cargo.toml
    [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-ansi-escape"
    version = { workspace = true }
… +237 lines
        "process",
        "rt-multi-thread",
        "signal",
    ] }
    tracing = { version
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' execpolicy/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    name = "codex-execpolicy"
    version = { workspace = true }
    edition = "2024"

… +23 lines
    serde_json = "1.0.142"
    serde_with = { version = "3", features = ["macros"] }

    [dev-dependencies]
    tempfile = "3.13.0"
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' file-search/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-file-search"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +11 lines
    ignore = "0.4.23"
    nucleo-matcher = "0.3.1"
    serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
    serde_json = "1.0.142"
    tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' linux-sandbox/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-linux-sandbox"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +24 lines
        "macros",
        "process",
        "rt-multi-thread",
        "signal",
    ] }
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' login/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-login"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +17 lines
    ] }

    [dev-dependencies]
    pretty_assertions = "1.4.1"
    tempfile = "3"
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' mcp-client/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    name = "codex-mcp-client"
    version = { workspace = true }
    edition = "2024"

… +13 lines
        "process",
        "rt-multi-thread",
        "sync",
        "time",
    ] }
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' mcp-server/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-mcp-server"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +35 lines
    mcp_test_support = { path = "tests/common" }
    pretty_assertions = "1.4.1"
    tempfile = "3"
    tokio-test = "0.4"
    wiremock = "0.6"
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' mcp-types/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "mcp-types"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +1 lines
    workspace = true

    [dependencies]
    serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
    serde_json = "1"
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' ollama/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-ollama"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +22 lines
    tracing = { version = "0.1.41", features = ["log"] }
    wiremock = "0.6"

    [dev-dependencies]
    tempfile = "3"
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' tui/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-tui"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +74 lines
    chrono = { version = "0.4", features = ["serde"] }
    insta = "1.43.1"
    pretty_assertions = "1"
    rand = "0.8"
    vt100 = "0.16.2"
  ✓ sed -n '1,200p' chatgpt/Cargo.toml
  └ [package]
    edition = "2024"
    name = "codex-chatgpt"
    version = { workspace = true }

… +11 lines
    serde_json = "1"
    tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }

    [dev-dependencies]
    tempfile = "3"

codex
Here’s what’s driving size in this workspace’s binaries.

Main Causes

- Static linking style: Each bin (codex, codex-tui, codex-exec,
codex-mcp-server, etc.) statically links its full dependency graph, so common
code isn’t shared at runtime across executables.
- Heavy deps (HTTP/TLS): reqwest brings in Hyper, HTTP/2, compressors, and a TLS
stack (rustls by default; OpenSSL on musl). In core, login, tui, and ollama you
enable reqwest with json/stream, which still pulls a large transitive set.
- Image/terminal stack: codex-tui includes image (with jpeg), ratatui,
crossterm, and ratatui-image, which together contribute significant code size
(decoders, pixel ops, terminal backends).
- Parsers/VMs: tree-sitter + tree-sitter-bash (in core and apply-patch) and
starlark (in execpolicy) include sizeable parser/VM tables and runtimes.
- Tokio runtime: Broad tokio features (rt-multi-thread, macros, process, signal)
across many crates inflate code size even if only subsets are used per bin.
- Panic + backtraces: Default panic = unwind and backtrace support keep
unwinding tables and symbols that add weight.
- Per-target OpenSSL (musl): For *-unknown-linux-musl, core enables openssl-sys
with vendored, compiling OpenSSL into the binary—this adds multiple megabytes
per executable.

Build-Mode Notes

- Release settings: You use lto = "fat" and codegen-units = 1 (good for size),
but strip = "symbols" keeps debuginfo. Debuginfo is often the largest single
contributor; if you build in release with that setting, binaries can still be
large.
- Debug builds: cargo build (dev profile) includes full debuginfo, no LTO, and
assertions—outputs are much larger than cargo build --release.

If you want, I can outline targeted trims (e.g., strip = "debuginfo", opt-level
= "z", panic abort, tighter tokio/reqwest features) and estimate impact per
binary.