OpenAI today announced Codex, a cloud-based software engineering agent that can perform multiple software engineering tasks in parallel. Codex is powered by a new model called codex-1, which is a custom version of OpenAI o3 trained using reinforcement learning on real-world coding tasks.
Unlike other software engineering agents that are already available in the market, Codex performs the assigned tasks independently in a separate, isolated environment preloaded with the assigned codebase. This allows Codex to perform several tasks like writing new features, analyzing the codebase to answer queries, fixing existing bugs, and proposing pull requests for review, among others, in parallel.
OpenAI claims that Codex typically takes 1-30 minutes to complete the task, depending on the complexity. Once Codex completes its tasks, it can also provide proof, such as log output, for verification. If required, users can also monitor the progress of Codex.
Users can access Codex from ChatGPT and assign it software engineering tasks by clicking “Code” after typing the prompt. Codex is now available only for ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Team users. OpenAI will bring Codex support for ChatGPT Plus and Edu users in the near future. Since Codex is in its research preview phase, OpenAI is offering generous access at no additional cost for the coming weeks. Later on, OpenAI will implement rate-limited access and flexible pricing options.
Codex also has its limitations. For example, it cannot accept image inputs for frontend work, and users won’t be able to course-correct the agent while it's working. Additionally, it cannot perform complex tasks that require an extended period of time.
Along with the launch of Codex, OpenAI also announced updates to Codex CLI, a lightweight open-source coding agent that runs in a local machine’s terminal. OpenAI today announced a smaller version of the codex-1 model, an optimized version of o4-mini for Codex CLI. OpenAI claims that this new model will work better for low-latency code Q&A and editing.
Finally, Codex CLI users can now log in to their ChatGPT account and select the API organization they want to use. This eliminates the need to manually configure API keys. ChatGPT Plus and Pro users who sign in to Codex CLI with ChatGPT can get $5 and $50 in free API credits, respectively, for the next month.
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