f1653dd4d3
Add support for returning threads by either `created_at` OR `updated_at` descending. Previously core always returned threads ordered by `created_at`. This PR: - updates core to be able to list threads by `updated_at` OR `created_at` descending based on what the caller wants - also update `thread/list` in app-server to expose this (default to `created_at` if not specified) All existing codepaths (app-server, TUI) still default to `created_at`, so no behavior change is expected with this PR. **Implementation** To sort by `updated_at` is a bit nontrivial (whereas `created_at` is easy due to the way we structure the folders and filenames on disk, which are all based on `created_at`). The most naive way to do this without introducing a cache file or sqlite DB (which we have to implement/maintain) is to scan files in reverse `created_at` order on disk, and look at the file's mtime (last modified timestamp according to the filesystem) until we reach `MAX_SCAN_FILES` (currently set to 10,000). Then, we can return the most recent N threads. Based on some quick and dirty benchmarking on my machine with ~1000 rollout files, calling `thread/list` with limit 50, the `updated_at` path is slower as expected due to all the I/O: - updated-at: average 103.10 ms - created-at: average 41.10 ms Those absolute numbers aren't a big deal IMO, but we can certainly optimize this in a followup if needed by introducing more state stored on disk. **Caveat** There's also a limitation in that any files older than `MAX_SCAN_FILES` will be excluded, which means if a user continues a REALLY old thread, it's possible to not be included. In practice that should not be too big of an issue. If a user makes... - 1000 rollouts/day → threads older than 10 days won't show up - 100 rollouts/day → ~100 days If this becomes a problem for some reason, even more motivation to implement an updated_at cache.
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.