alt Hacker NewsThe Codex App
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Looks like another Claude App/Cowork-type competitor with slightly different tradeoffs (Cowork just calls Claude Code in a VM, this just calls Codex CLI with OS sandboxing).
Here's the Codex tech stack in case anyone was interested like me.
Framework: Electron 40.0.0
Frontend:
- React 19.2.0
- Jotai (state management)
- TanStack React Form
- Vite (bundler)
- TypeScript
Backend/Main Process:
- Node.js
- better-sqlite3 (local database)
- node-pty (terminal emulation)
- Zod (validation)
- Immer (immutable state)
Build & Dev:
- pnpm (package manager)
- Electron Forge
- Vitest (testing)
- ESLint + Prettier
Native/macOS:
- Sparkle (auto-updates)
- Squirrel (installer)
- electron-liquid-glass (macOS vibrancy effects)
- Sentry (error tracking)
It's basically what Emdash (https://www.emdash.sh/), Conductor (https://www.conductor.build/) & CO have been building but as first class product from OpenAI.
Begs the question if Anthropic will follow up with a first-class Claude Code "multi agent" (git worktree) app themselves.
The landing page for the demo game "Voxel Velocity" mentions "<Enter> start" at the bottom, but <Enter> actually changes selection. One would think that after 7mm tokens and use of a QA agent, they would catch something like this.
I'm a Claude Code user primarily. The best UI based orchestrator I've used is Zenflow by Zencoder.ai -- I am in no way affiliated with them, but their UI / tool can connect to any model or service you have. They offer their own model but I've not used it.
What I like is that the sessions are highly configurable from their plan.md which translates a md document into a process. So you can tweak and add steps. This is similar to some of the other workflow tools I've seen around hooks and such -- but presented in a way that is easy for me to use. I also like that it can update the plan.md as it goes to dynamically add steps and even add "hooks" as needed based on the problem.
To me, the obvious next step for these companies is to integrate their products with web hosting. At this point, the remaining hurdle for non-developers is deploying their creations to the cloud with built-in monetization.
OT: I never liked about codex how it didn't ask for confirmations before editing. While Claude has auto accept off by default I never understood why codex didn't have it. I want to iterate on LLMs edit suggestions.
Did they fix it?
Otherwise I'm not interested.
OpenAI, ChatGPT, Codex
So many of the things that pioneered the way for the truly good (Claude, Gemini) to evolve. I am thankful for what they have done.
But the quality is gone, and they are now in catch-up mode. This is clear, not just from the quality of GPT-5.x outputs, but from this article.
They launch something new, flashy, should get the attention of all of us. And yet, they only launch to Apple devices?
Then, there are typos in the article. Again. I can't believe they would be sloppy about this with so much on the line. EDIT: since I know someone will ask, couple of examples - "7MM Tokens", "...this prompt initial prompt..."
And why are they not giving the full prompt used for these examples? "...that we've summarized for clarity" but we want to see the actual prompt. How unclear do we need to make our prompts to get to the level that you're showing us? Slight red flag there.
Anyway, good luck to them, and I hope it improves! Happy to try it out when it does, or at the very least, when it exists for a platform I own.
How about us, Linux users? This is Mac only. Do they plan to support CLI version with all the features they are adding to desktop app?
- looks like OpenAIs answer to Claude Code Desktop / Cowork
- workspace agent runner apps (like Conductor) get more and more obsolete
- "vibe working" is becoming a thing - people use folder based agents to do their work (not just coding)
- new workflows seem to be evolving into folder based workspaces, where agents can self-configure MCP servers and skills + memory files and instructions
kinda interested to see if openai has the ideas & shipping power to compete with anthropic going forward; anthropic does not only have an edge over openai because of how op their models are at coding, but also because they innovate on workflows and ai tooling standards; openai so far has only followed in adoption (mcp, skills, now codex desktop) but rarely pushed the SOTA themselves.
Looks like they forgot the part of the code editor where you can… edit code. Claude Code in Zed is about the most optimal experience I can imagine. I want the agent on the side and a code editor in the middle.
Bit of a buried lede:
> For a limited time we're including Codex with ChatGPT Free
Is this the first free frontier coding agent? (I know there have been OSS coding agents for years, but not Codex/Claude Code.)
No.
I am glad to not depend on AI. It would annoy me to no ends how it tries to assimilate everything. It's like systemd on roids in this aspect. It will swallow up more and more tasks. Granted, in a way this is saying "then it was not necessary to have this things anymore now that AI solves it all", but I am skeptical of "the praised land" here. Skynet was not trusted back in 1982 or so. I don't trust AI either.
Mac only. Again.
Apple is great but this is OpenAI devs showing their disconnect from the mainstream. Its complacent at best, contemptuous at worst.
SamA or somebody really needs to give the product managers here a kick up the arse.
> For a limited time, Codex will also be available to ChatGPT Free and Go users to help build more with agents. We’re also doubling rate limits for existing Codex users across all paid plans during this period.
Is there more information about it? For how long and what are the limits?
This looks interesting and I use Codex a fair bit already in vscode etc, but I'm having trouble leaving a 'code editor with AI' to an environment that sort of looks like it puts the code as a hidden secondary artefact. I guess the key thing is the multi agent spinning plates part.
These paid offerings geared toward software development must be a hell of a lot "smarter" than the regular chatbots. The amount of nonsense and bad or outright wrong code Gemini and ChatGPT throw at me lately is off the charts. I feel like they are getting dumber.
This is an ode to opencode and how openai, very strangely, is just porting layout and feature of real open-source.
So much valuation, so much intern competetion and shenanigans than the creatives left.
This is the 5th OpenAI product called Codex if I'm counting correctly
> "Localize my app and add the option to change units"
To me this still feels like the wrong way to interact with a coding agent. Does this lead people to success? I've never seen it not go off the rails in some way unless you provide clear boundaries as to what the scope of the expected change is. It's gonna write code if you don't even want it to yet, it's gonna write the test first or the logic first, whichever you don't want it to do. It'll be much too verbose or much too hacky, etc.
Not to rain on the parade, but this app feels to me ... unpolished. Some of the options in the demo feels less thought out and just put together.
I will try it out, but is this just me, or product/UX side of recent OpenAI products are sort of ... skipped over? It is good that agents help ship software quickly, but please no half-baked stuff like Altas 2.0 again ...
I really look forward to using this. I tried Codex first time yesterday and it was able to complete a task (i.e. drawing Penrose tilings) that Claude Code previously failed at. Also a little overwhelmed by all the new features that this app brings. I feel that I'm behind all the fancy new tools.
Genuinely curious if people would just let this rip with no obvious isolation?
I’m aware Mac OS has some isolation/sandboxes but without running codex via docker I wouldn’t be running codex.
(Appreciate there are still risks)
I guess the next it was meant to happen...I tried Google's Antigravity and found it quite buggy.
May give a go at this and Claude Code desktop as well, but Cursor guys are still working the hardest to keep themselves alive.
I'm excited to try this out, it seems like it would solve a lot of my workflow issues. I hope there is the ability to review/edit research docs and plans it generates and not just code.
I’ve been using codex regularly and it’s pretty good at model extra high with pretty generous context.
From the video, I can see how this app would be useful in:
- Creating branches without having to open another terminal, or creating a new branch before the session.
- Seeing diff in the same app.
- working on multiple sessions at once without switching CLI
- I quite like the “address the comments”, I can see how this would be valuable
I will give it a try for sure
Wow, this is nearly an exact copy of Codex Monitor[1]: voice mode, project + threads/agents, git panel, PR button, terminal drawer, IDE integrations, local/worktree/cloud edits, archiving threads, etc.
Does anybody know when Codex is going to roll out subagent support? That has been an absolute game changer in Claude Code. It lets me run with a single session for so much longer and chip away at much more complex tasks. This was my biggest pain point when I used Codex last week.
Is there any marked difference or benefit over Claude Code?
i've been using ai vibe coding tools since Copilot was basically spicy autocomplete, and this feels like the next obvious step: less “help me type” and more “please do this while I watch nervously.” The agent model sounds powerful, but in practice it’s still a lot of supervision, retries, and quiet hope it doesn’t hallucinate itself into a refactor I didn’t ask for.
Maybe it's because I'm not used to the flow, but I prefer to work directly on the machine where I'm logged in via ssh, instead of working "somewhere in a git tree", and then have to deploy/test/etc.
Once this app (or a similar app by Anthropic) will allow me to have the same level of "orchestration" but on a remote machine, I'll test it.
I typically bounce between Claude Code and Codex for the same project, and generally enjoy using both to check each other.
One cool thing about this: upon installing it immediately found all previous projects I've used with Codex and has those projects in the sidebar with all of the "threads" (sessions) I've had with Codex on these projects!
This does look like it would simplify some aspects of using Codex on Mac, however, when I first saw the headline I thought this was going to be a phone app. And that started running a whole list of ideas through my brain... :(
But overall, looks very nice and I'm looking forward to giving it a try.
I'm managing context with codex inside VSCode using different threads. I'm trying to figure out if there are use cases where I'd rather be in this app.
How is this better than vscode with the codex extension?
Bugs me they treat MacOS as first class. Do people actually develop on a Mac in 2026? Why not just start with Linux?
seems like I need to update my toolset for the 3rd time this week
Is this not just a skinned version of Goose: https://block.github.io/goose/
Having dictation and worktree support built in is nice. Currently there is a whole ecosystem of tools implementing similar functionality for Claude Code. The automations look cool too!
Maybe I'm just not getting it, but I just don't give a flying fuck about any of this crap.
Like, seriously, this is the grand new vision of using a computer, this is the interface to these LLMs we're settling on? This is the best we could come up with? Having an army of chatbots chatting to each other running basic build commands in a terminal while we what? Supervise them? Yell at them? When am I getting manager pay bumps then?
Sorry. I'll stick with occasionally chatting with one of these things in a sandboxed web browser on a single difficult problem I'm having. I just don't see literally any value in using them this way. More power to the rest of you.
Is it open source? Do they disclose which framework they use for the GUI? Is it Electron or Tauri?
Does this support users who access Codex via Azure OpenAI API keys?
Currently using opencode with Codex 5.2 and wondering why I should switch.
Built an open source lightweight version of this that works with any cli agent: https://github.com/built-by-as/FleetCode
The inclusion of a live vibe-coded game on the webpage is fun, except the game barely works and it's odd they didn't attempt any polish/QA for what is ostensibly a PR announcement. It just adds more fuel to the fire to the argument that vibecoding results in AI slop.
It keeps offering me to "Get Plus" even though I am signed and already have a Plus plan.
Codex really grown on me lately. I re-signed to try it out on a project I have and it turned out to be really great addition to my toolkit.
It isn't always perfect and it's cli (how I mostly use it) isn't as sophisticated as OpenCode which is my default.
I am happy with this app, I am using Superset, terminal app which suprisingly is well positioned to help you if you work in cli like I do. But like I said, new desktop app seems like a solid addition.
Genuinely excited to try this out. I've started using Codex much more heavily in the past two months and honestly, it's been shockingly good. Not perfect mind you, but it keeps impressing me with what it's able to "get". It often gets stuff wrong, and at times runs with faulty assumptions, but overall it's no worse than having average L3-L4 engs at your disposal.
That being said, the app is stuck at the launch screen, with "Loading projects..." taking forever...
Edit: A lot of links to documentation aren't working yet. E.g.: https://developers.openai.com/codex/guides/environments. My current setup involves having a bunch of different environments in their own VMs using Tart and using VS Code Remote for each of them. I'm not married to that setup, but I'm curious how it handles multiple environments.
Edit 2: Link is working now. Looks like I might have to tweak my setup to have port offsets instead of running VMs.