The Responses API requires that all tool names conform to
'^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$'. This PR replaces all non-conforming characters with
`_` to ensure that they can be used.
Fixes#8174
Historically, `accept_elicitation_for_prompt_rule()` was flaky because
we were using a notification to update the sandbox followed by a `shell`
tool request that we expected to be subject to the new sandbox config,
but because [rmcp](https://crates.io/crates/rmcp) MCP servers delegate
each incoming message to a new Tokio task, messages are not guaranteed
to be processed in order, so sometimes the `shell` tool call would run
before the notification was processed.
Prior to this PR, we relied on a generous `sleep()` between the
notification and the request to reduce the change of the test flaking
out.
This PR implements a proper fix, which is to use a _request_ instead of
a notification for the sandbox update so that we can wait for the
response to the sandbox request before sending the request to the
`shell` tool call. Previously, `rmcp` did not support custom requests,
but I fixed that in
https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/rust-sdk/pull/590, which made it
into the `0.12.0` release (see #8288).
This PR updates `shell-tool-mcp` to expect
`"codex/sandbox-state/update"` as a _request_ instead of a notification
and sends the appropriate ack. Note this behavior is tied to our custom
`codex/sandbox-state` capability, which Codex honors as an MCP client,
which is why `core/src/mcp_connection_manager.rs` had to be updated as
part of this PR, as well.
This PR also updates the docs at `shell-tool-mcp/README.md`.
## Problem
The introduction of `notify_sandbox_state_change()` in #7112 caused a
regression where the blocking call in `Session::new()` waits for all MCP
servers to fully initialize before returning. This prevents the TUI
event loop from starting, resulting in `McpStartupUpdateEvent` messages
being emitted but never consumed or displayed. As a result, the app
appears to hang during startup, and users do not see the expected
"Booting MCP server: {name}" status line.
Issue: [#7827](https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/7827)
## Solution
This change moves sandbox state notification into each MCP server's
background initialization task. The notification is sent immediately
after the server transitions to the Ready state. This approach:
- Avoids blocking `Session::new()`, allowing the TUI event loop to start
promptly.
- Ensures each MCP server receives its sandbox state before handling any
tool calls.
- Restores the display of "Booting MCP server" status lines during
startup.
## Key Changes
- Added `ManagedClient::notify_sandbox_state()` method.
- Passed sandbox_state to `McpConnectionManager::initialize()`.
- Sends sandbox state notification in the background task after the
server reaches Ready status.
- Removed blocking notify_sandbox_state_change() methods.
- Added a chatwidget snapshot test for the "Booting MCP server" status
line.
## Regression Details
Regression was bisected to #7112, which introduced the blocking
behavior.
---------
Co-authored-by: Michael Bolin <bolinfest@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Michael Bolin <mbolin@openai.com>
This introduces a new feature to Codex when it operates as an MCP
_client_ where if an MCP _server_ replies that it has an entry named
`"codex/sandbox-state"` in its _server capabilities_, then Codex will
send it an MCP notification with the following structure:
```json
{
"method": "codex/sandbox-state/update",
"params": {
"sandboxPolicy": {
"type": "workspace-write",
"network-access": false,
"exclude-tmpdir-env-var": false
"exclude-slash-tmp": false
},
"codexLinuxSandboxExe": null,
"sandboxCwd": "/Users/mbolin/code/codex2"
}
}
```
or with whatever values are appropriate for the initial `sandboxPolicy`.
**NOTE:** Codex _should_ continue to send the MCP server notifications
of the same format if these things change over the lifetime of the
thread, but that isn't wired up yet.
The result is that `shell-tool-mcp` can consume these values so that
when it calls `codex_core::exec::process_exec_tool_call()` in
`codex-rs/exec-server/src/posix/escalate_server.rs`, it is now sure to
call it with the correct values (whereas previously we relied on
hardcoded values).
While I would argue this is a supported use case within the MCP
protocol, the `rmcp` crate that we are using today does not support
custom notifications. As such, I had to patch it and I submitted it for
review, so hopefully it will be accepted in some form:
https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/rust-sdk/pull/556
To test out this change from end-to-end:
- I ran `cargo build` in `~/code/codex2/codex-rs/exec-server`
- I built the fork of Bash in `~/code/bash/bash`
- I added the following to my `~/.codex/config.toml`:
```toml
# Use with `codex --disable shell_tool`.
[mcp_servers.execshell]
args = ["--bash", "/Users/mbolin/code/bash/bash"]
command = "/Users/mbolin/code/codex2/codex-rs/target/debug/codex-exec-mcp-server"
```
- From `~/code/codex2/codex-rs`, I ran `just codex --disable shell_tool`
- When the TUI started up, I verified that the sandbox mode is
`workspace-write`
- I ran `/mcp` to verify that the shell tool from the MCP is there:
<img width="1387" height="1400" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1a8addcc-5005-4e16-b59f-95cfd06fd4ab"
/>
- Then I asked it:
> what is the output of `gh issue list`
because this should be auto-approved with our existing dummy policy:
https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/af63e6eccc35783f1bf4dca3c61adb090efb6b8a/codex-rs/exec-server/src/posix.rs#L157-L164
And it worked:
<img width="1387" height="1400" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7568d2f7-80da-4d68-86d0-c265a6f5e6c1"
/>
1. I have seen too many reports of people hitting startup timeout errors
and thinking Codex is broken. Hopefully this will help people
self-serve. We may also want to consider raising the timeout to ~15s.
2. Make it more clear what PAT is (personal access token) in the GitHub
error
<img width="2378" height="674" alt="CleanShot 2025-10-23 at 22 05 06"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d148ce1d-ade3-4511-84a4-c164aefdb5c5"
/>
I haven't heard of any issues with the studio rmcp client so let's
remove the legacy one and default to the new one.
Any code changes are moving code from the adapter inline but there
should be no meaningful functionality changes.
Some MCP servers expose a lot of tools. In those cases, it is reasonable
to allow/denylist tools for Codex to use so it doesn't get overwhelmed
with too many tools.
The new configuration options available in the `mcp_server` toml table
are:
* `enabled_tools`
* `disabled_tools`
Fixes#4796
This should make it more clear that specific tools come from MCP
servers.
#4806 requested that we add the server name but we already do that.
Fixes#4806
This makes stdio mcp servers more flexible by allowing users to specify
the cwd to run the server command from and adding additional environment
variables to be passed through to the server.
Example config using the test server in this repo:
```toml
[mcp_servers.test_stdio]
cwd = "/Users/<user>/code/codex/codex-rs"
command = "cargo"
args = ["run", "--bin", "test_stdio_server"]
env_vars = ["MCP_TEST_VALUE"]
```
@bolinfest I know you hate these env var tests but let's roll with this
for now. I may take a stab at the env guard + serial macro at some
point.
This adds two new config fields to streamable http mcp servers:
`http_headers`: a map of key to value
`env_http_headers` a map of key to env var which will be resolved at
request time
All headers will be passed to all MCP requests to that server just like
authorization headers.
There is a test ensuring that headers are not passed to other servers.
Fixes#5180
1. You can now add streamable http servers via the CLI
2. As part of this, I'm also changing the existing bearer_token plain
text config field with ane env var
```
mcp add github --url https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/ --bearer-token-env-var=GITHUB_PAT
```
This lets users/companies explicitly choose whether to force/disallow
the keyring/fallback file storage for mcp credentials.
People who develop with Codex will want to use this until we sign
binaries or else each ad-hoc debug builds will require keychain access
on every build. I don't love this and am open to other ideas for how to
handle that.
```toml
mcp_oauth_credentials_store = "auto"
mcp_oauth_credentials_store = "file"
mcp_oauth_credentials_store = "keyrung"
```
Defaults to `auto`
The `experimental_use_rmcp_client` flag is still useful to:
1. Toggle between stdio clients
2. Enable oauth beacuse we want to land
https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/rust-sdk/pull/469,
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/4677, and binary signing before we
enable it by default
However, for no-auth http servers, there is only one option so we don't
need the flag and it seems to be working pretty well.
This PR adds oauth login support to streamable http servers when
`experimental_use_rmcp_client` is enabled.
This PR is large but represents the minimal amount of work required for
this to work. To keep this PR smaller, login can only be done with
`codex mcp login` and `codex mcp logout` but it doesn't appear in `/mcp`
or `codex mcp list` yet. Fingers crossed that this is the last large MCP
PR and that subsequent PRs can be smaller.
Under the hood, credentials are stored using platform credential
managers using the [keyring crate](https://crates.io/crates/keyring).
When the keyring isn't available, it falls back to storing credentials
in `CODEX_HOME/.credentials.json` which is consistent with how other
coding agents handle authentication.
I tested this on macOS, Windows, WSL (ubuntu), and Linux. I wasn't able
to test the dbus store on linux but did verify that the fallback works.
One quirk is that if you have credentials, during development, every
build will have its own ad-hoc binary so the keyring won't recognize the
reader as being the same as the write so it may ask for the user's
password. I may add an override to disable this or allow
users/enterprises to opt-out of the keyring storage if it causes issues.
<img width="5064" height="686" alt="CleanShot 2025-09-30 at 19 31 40"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9573f9b4-07f1-4160-83b8-2920db287e2d"
/>
<img width="745" height="486" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9562649b-ea5f-4f22-ace2-d0cb438b143e"
/>
This PR adds support for streamable HTTP MCP servers when the
`experimental_use_rmcp_client` is enabled.
To set one up, simply add a new mcp server config with the url:
```
[mcp_servers.figma]
url = "http://127.0.0.1:3845/mcp"
```
It also supports an optional `bearer_token` which will be provided in an
authorization header. The full oauth flow is not supported yet.
The config parsing will throw if it detects that the user mixed and
matched config fields (like command + bearer token or url + env).
The best way to review it is to review `core/src` and then
`rmcp-client/src/rmcp_client.rs` first. The rest is tests and
propagating the `Transport` struct around the codebase.
Example with the Figma MCP:
<img width="5084" height="1614" alt="CleanShot 2025-09-26 at 13 35 40"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/eaf2771e-df3e-4300-816b-184d7dec5a28"
/>
The [official Rust
SDK](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/rust-sdk/tree/57fc428c578a1a3fe851ee0838bf068bda120eb3)
has come a long way since we first started our mcp client implementation
5 months ago and, today, it is much more complete than our own
stdio-only implementation.
This PR introduces a new config flag `experimental_use_rmcp_client`
which will use a new mcp client powered by the sdk instead of our own.
To keep this PR simple, I've only implemented the same stdio MCP
functionality that we had but will expand on it with future PRs.
---------
Co-authored-by: pakrym-oai <pakrym@openai.com>
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/3395 updated `mcp-types/src/lib.rs`
by hand, but that file is generated code that is produced by
`mcp-types/generate_mcp_types.py`. Unfortunately, we do not have
anything in CI to verify this right now, but I will address that in a
subsequent PR.
#3395 ended up introducing a change that added a required field when
deserializing `InitializeResult`, breaking Codex when used as an MCP
client, so the quick fix in #3436 was to make the new field `Optional`
with `skip_serializing_if = "Option::is_none"`, but that did not address
the problem that `mcp-types/generate_mcp_types.py` and
`mcp-types/src/lib.rs` are out of sync.
This PR gets things back to where they are in sync. It removes the
custom `mcp_types::McpClientInfo` type that was added to
`mcp-types/src/lib.rs` and forces us to use the generated
`mcp_types::Implementation` type. Though this PR also updates
`generate_mcp_types.py` to generate the additional `user_agent:
Optional<String>` field on `Implementation` so that we can continue to
specify it when Codex operates as an MCP server.
However, this also requires us to specify `user_agent: None` when Codex
operates as an MCP client.
We may want to introduce our own `InitializeResult` type that is
specific to when we run as a server to avoid this in the future, but my
immediate goal is just to get things back in sync.
• I have signed the CLA by commenting the required sentence and
triggered recheck.
• Local checks are all green (fmt / clippy / test).
• Could you please approve the pending GitHub Actions workflows
(first-time contributor), and when convenient, help with one approving
review so I can proceed? Thanks!
## Summary
- Catch and log task panics during server initialization instead of
propagating JoinError
- Handle tool listing failures gracefully, allowing partial server
initialization
- Improve error resilience on macOS where init timeouts are more common
## Test plan
- [x] Test MCP server initialization with timeout scenarios
- [x] Verify graceful handling of tool listing failures
- [x] Confirm improved error messages and logging
- [x] Test on macOS
## Fix issue #3196#2346#2555
### fix before:
<img width="851" height="363" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/e1f9c749-71fd-4873-a04f-d3fc4cbe0ae6"
/>
<img width="775" height="108" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4e4748bd-9dd6-42b5-b38b-8bfe9341a441"
/>
### fix improved:
<img width="966" height="528" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/418324f3-e37a-4a3c-8bdd-934f9ff21dfb"
/>
---------
Co-authored-by: Michael Bolin <mbolin@openai.com>
Seeing timeouts on certain, slow mcp server starting up when codex is
invoked. Before this change, the timeout was a hard-coded 10s. Need the
ability to define arbitrary timeouts on a per-server basis.
## Summary of changes
- Add startup_timeout_ms to McpServerConfig with 10s default when unset
- Use per-server timeout for initialize and tools/list
- Introduce ManagedClient to store client and timeout; rename
LIST_TOOLS_TIMEOUT to DEFAULT_STARTUP_TIMEOUT
- Update docs to document startup_timeout_ms with example and options
table
---------
Co-authored-by: Matthew Dolan <dolan-openai@users.noreply.github.com>
This PR:
* Added the clippy.toml to configure allowable expect / unwrap usage in
tests
* Removed as many expect/allow lines as possible from tests
* moved a bunch of allows to expects where possible
Note: in integration tests, non `#[test]` helper functions are not
covered by this so we had to leave a few lingering `expect(expect_used`
checks around
This updates the MCP server so that if it receives an
`ExecApprovalRequest` from the `Codex` session, it in turn sends an [MCP
elicitation](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/draft/client/elicitation)
to the client to ask for the approval decision. Upon getting a response,
it forwards the client's decision via `Op::ExecApproval`.
Admittedly, we should be doing the same thing for
`ApplyPatchApprovalRequest`, but this is our first time experimenting
with elicitations, so I'm inclined to defer wiring that code path up
until we feel good about how this one works.
---
[//]: # (BEGIN SAPLING FOOTER)
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with [ReviewStack](https://reviewstack.dev/openai/codex/pull/1623).
* __->__ #1623
* #1622
* #1621
* #1620
This updates the schema in `generate_mcp_types.py` from `2025-03-26` to
`2025-06-18`, regenerates `mcp-types/src/lib.rs`, and then updates all
the code that uses `mcp-types` to honor the changes.
Ran
```
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector just codex mcp
```
and verified that I was able to invoke the `codex` tool, as expected.
---
[//]: # (BEGIN SAPLING FOOTER)
Stack created with [Sapling](https://sapling-scm.com). Best reviewed
with [ReviewStack](https://reviewstack.dev/openai/codex/pull/1621).
* #1623
* #1622
* __->__ #1621
This PR implements server name validation for MCP (Model Context
Protocol) servers to ensure they conform to the required pattern
^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$. This addresses the TODO comment in
mcp_connection_manager.rs:82.
+ Added validation before spawning MCP client tasks
+ Invalid server names are added to errors map with descriptive messages
I have read the CLA Document and I hereby sign the CLA
---------
Co-authored-by: Michael Bolin <bolinfest@gmail.com>
`config.rs` is already quite long without these definitions. Since they
have no real dependencies of their own, let's move them to their own
file so `config.rs` can focus on the business logic of loading a config.
We now impose a 10s timeout on the initial `tools/list` request to an
MCP server. We do not apply a timeout for other types of requests yet,
but we should start enforcing those, as well.
Some effects of this change:
- New formatting changes across many files. No functionality changes
should occur from that.
- Calls to `set_env` are considered unsafe, since this only happens in
tests we wrap them in `unsafe` blocks
This adds initial support for MCP servers in the style of Claude Desktop
and Cursor. Note this PR is the bare minimum to get things working end
to end: all configured MCP servers are launched every time Codex is run,
there is no recovery for MCP servers that crash, etc.
(Also, I took some shortcuts to change some fields of `Session` to be
`pub(crate)`, which also means there are circular deps between
`codex.rs` and `mcp_tool_call.rs`, but I will clean that up in a
subsequent PR.)
`codex-rs/README.md` is updated as part of this PR to explain how to use
this feature. There is a bit of plumbing to route the new settings from
`Config` to the business logic in `codex.rs`. The most significant
chunks for new code are in `mcp_connection_manager.rs` (which defines
the `McpConnectionManager` struct) and `mcp_tool_call.rs`, which is
responsible for tool calls.
This PR also introduces new `McpToolCallBegin` and `McpToolCallEnd`
event types to the protocol, but does not add any handlers for them.
(See https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/836 for initial usage.)
To test, I added the following to my `~/.codex/config.toml`:
```toml
# Local build of https://github.com/hideya/mcp-server-weather-js
[mcp_servers.weather]
command = "/Users/mbolin/code/mcp-server-weather-js/dist/index.js"
args = []
```
And then I ran the following:
```
codex-rs$ cargo run --bin codex exec 'what is the weather in san francisco'
[2025-05-06T22:40:05] Task started: 1
[2025-05-06T22:40:18] Agent message: Here’s the latest National Weather Service forecast for San Francisco (downtown, near 37.77° N, 122.42° W):
This Afternoon (Tue):
• Sunny, high near 69 °F
• West-southwest wind around 12 mph
Tonight:
• Partly cloudy, low around 52 °F
• SW wind 7–10 mph
...
```
Note that Codex itself is not able to make network calls, so it would
not normally be able to get live weather information like this. However,
the weather MCP is [currently] not run under the Codex sandbox, so it is
able to hit `api.weather.gov` and fetch current weather information.
---
[//]: # (BEGIN SAPLING FOOTER)
Stack created with [Sapling](https://sapling-scm.com). Best reviewed
with [ReviewStack](https://reviewstack.dev/openai/codex/pull/829).
* #836
* __->__ #829
Gabriel Peal