Developer commands

ChatGPT web has its own composer command menu. Type / to see the actions available in the current chat. It doesn’t expose the ChatGPT desktop app or CLI command set; the Codex slash commands, CLI subcommands, and flags in this reference don’t apply to ChatGPT web.

ChatGPT desktop app commands

The general Commands page covers app navigation, chat shortcuts, keyboard customization, and deep links for chats, settings, skills, scheduled tasks, plugins, and pets.

The Slash commands page covers the commands available from the app composer, including /feedback, /goal, /init, /mcp, /plan, /review, and /status.

How to read this reference

This page catalogs every documented Codex CLI command and flag. Use the interactive tables to search by key or description. Each section shows the option’s maturity and flags deprecated options and risky combinations.

Global flags

These options apply to the base codex command. Most propagate to commands; see the notes above or the relevant command help for exceptions. For propagated flags, follow the relevant command help. For example, codex exec --oss ... applies --oss to exec.

Command overview

Command details

codex (interactive)

Running codex with no subcommand launches the interactive terminal UI (TUI). The agent accepts the global flags above plus image attachments. Web search defaults to cached mode; use --search to switch to live browsing. For low-friction local work, use --sandbox workspace-write --ask-for-approval on-request.

Use --remote ws://host:port or --remote wss://host:port to connect the TUI to an app server started with codex app-server --listen ws://IP:PORT. For a local Unix socket, use --remote unix:// for the default socket or --remote unix://PATH for an explicit path. Add --remote-auth-token-env <ENV_VAR> when the server requires a bearer token for WebSocket authentication.

codex app-server

Launch the Codex app server locally. This is primarily for development and debugging and may change without notice.

codex app-server --listen stdio:// keeps the default JSONL-over-stdio behavior, and codex app-server --stdio is an alias for that transport. --listen ws://IP:PORT enables WebSocket transport for app-server clients. The server accepts ws:// listen URLs; use TLS termination or a secure proxy when clients connect with wss://. Use --listen unix:// to accept WebSocket handshakes on Codex’s default Unix socket, or --listen unix:///absolute/path.sock to choose a socket path. If you generate schemas for client bindings, add --experimental to include gated fields and methods.

Add --code-mode-host wss://code-mode.example.com/host to connect app-server to a remote Code Mode host instead of starting a local host. This outbound connection is separate from --listen and shared by every thread in the app-server process. Use ws:// only for a localhost or SSH-forwarded host.

codex remote-control

Run codex remote-control to start remote control in the foreground. Use codex remote-control start to start the local app-server daemon with remote control enabled, and codex remote-control stop to stop it. Managed remote-control clients and SSH remote workflows use these commands; they aren’t a replacement for codex app-server --listen when you’re building a local protocol client.

After the daemon is running, use codex remote-control pair to create and print a short-lived manual pairing code. Add --json to any remote-control command for machine-readable output. For pair, the JSON response includes pairingCode, manualPairingCode, environmentId, and expiresAt.

codex app

Launch the ChatGPT desktop app from the terminal on macOS or Windows. On macOS, Codex can open a specific workspace path; on Windows, Codex prints the path to open.