OpenAI Reintroduces 'Codex' As A 'Command Center For building With Agents'

The rapid escalation of the LLM war has transformed the tech landscape into a fierce battleground.

Since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, others like Anthropic, Google, Meta, and more compete relentlessly to deliver the most capable models for reasoning, creativity, and specialized tasks like software development.

Massive investments fuel this race, pushing boundaries beyond simple chat interfaces toward truly agentic systems that act autonomously, reason step-by-step, and handle complex workflows with little supervision.

Developers and coders have adapted remarkably quickly to this shift, moving from initial wariness about AI displacing jobs to enthusiastic integration of these tools into daily work. What once felt like a threat now feels like augmentation: AI companions handle repetitive boilerplate, explore multiple approaches in parallel, debug edge cases, and even run tests or implement designs while humans focus on architecture, strategy, and high-level direction.

Coding has evolved into a collaborative dance where people orchestrate AI agents rather than write every line themselves, boosting productivity dramatically and making solo developers feel like they have entire teams at their disposal.

OpenAI's latest move in this space came with the launch of the Codex app for macOS, a dedicated desktop application positioned as a powerful command center for building with AI agents.

Codex has been around for quite a while, originally developed in 2021 from a fine-tuned of GPT-3 for translating natural language to code. Then, in 2025, OpenAI introduced a new, distinct product also called Codex, but as an autonomous, cloud-based software engineering agent powered by models like codex-1/o3 derivatives)

This Codex on the other hand, isn't merely another wrapper around chat. In fact it's a native tool designed specifically for managing multiple agents simultaneously, enabling parallel work on projects without the friction of switching contexts across terminals, browsers, or IDEs.

The app introduces built-in support for Git worktrees, allowing different agents to operate on isolated copies of the same repository so they can tackle separate features, fixes, or experiments concurrently without stepping on each other's changes. Developers can review clean, side-by-side diffs right in the interface, leave inline comments, approve merges, or discard work seamlessly before integrating anything into the main branch.

A standout feature is plan mode.

Users can simply type /plan to engage Codex in an iterative back-and-forth discussion that builds a thorough, structured strategy before any code gets written, helping avoid rushed implementations on complicated problems. The app also embraces reusable "skills," letting users package custom tools, conventions, scripts, resources, or even integrations (like pulling from Figma for pixel-perfect UI implementations) into shareable capabilities that agents invoke automatically or on demand.

Automations take things further by handling scheduled or background workflows. This is like nightly bug sweeps, automated PR reviews, report generation, or long-running builds, where Codex keeps working even when users are offline or focused elsewhere.

Agents can run independently for extended periods, up to 30 minutes or more, before surfacing results for human review, making it ideal for tasks that previously required constant babysitting.

To mark the release, OpenAI made generous gestures: temporarily opening Codex access to ChatGPT Free and Go users (previously restricted to paid tiers), while doubling rate limits across all paid plans: Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu, for two months, applying to the app, CLI, IDE extensions, and cloud interfaces alike.

CEO Sam Altman highlighted his personal enthusiasm, noting that he had recently built an app using Codex and found some of its suggestions surprisingly superior to his own ideas, underscoring the tool's creative depth.

Powered by GPT-5.2-Codex model that was released in the late 2025, has driven Codex usage to double overall and attract over a million monthly developers. This macOS app integrates smoothly with existing Codex surfaces like the CLI and web versions.

In the midst of intense competition, where rivals push their own agent swarms and coding interfaces, OpenAI's Codex app emphasizes usability, parallelism, and long-horizon autonomy to make agentic development feel intuitive and scalable.

For macOS users ready to experiment, the app is available now at openai.com/codex, offering a glimpse into how software will increasingly be built by teams of humans and AI working in tight coordination.

Despite the Codex app's launch, several drawbacks keep it grounded in reality.

It remains macOS-only for now, excluding Windows and Linux users even though Windows support is promised soon. In a cross-platform era, this feels unnecessarily limiting.

Then comes the pricing: the launch perks (free-tier access and doubled rate limits for two months) are welcome, but heavy multi-agent usage quickly racks up token costs, often forcing upgrades to Pro or Enterprise plans to avoid throttling.

And even with GPT-5.2-Codex powering it, the agents still hallucinate buggy code, miss subtle regressions in large projects, or stumble on complex reasoning. Not to mention that occasional high CPU usage causing lag, context quirks across interfaces, finicky Git integrations, and the absolute need for stable internet since everything runs in the cloud. Privacy-conscious users must carefully configure permissions to prevent overreach.

Because of this, human review stays essential to catch what slips through.

In short, the Codex app is a powerful step toward agentic coding: parallel, autonomous, and collaborative. But it's far from perfect. It boosts productivity enormously when used with discipline and oversight, yet current limitations remind us that AI agents are still maturing.