Codex CLI 0.117.0: Plugins Are Now a First-Class Workflow

Plugin System Elevated to First-Class Workflow

Codex CLI 0.117.0 marks a significant maturation of the plugin system, moving it from an experimental feature into a core, production-ready workflow. The headline change is product-scoped plugin sync at startup: when Codex launches, it automatically detects and syncs plugins that are scoped to the current product or project directory. This means teams can define a canonical set of plugins for a repository, and every developer who works in that repo will have those plugins installed and ready without any manual configuration.

The /plugins Command

Browsing and managing plugins is now handled through the new /plugins command, which opens an interactive browser directly in the Codex interface. Developers can explore available plugins, read their descriptions, check their authentication requirements, and install or remove them without leaving the terminal session. The browser presents plugins with their metadata — skills they expose, app integrations they enable, and MCP server configurations they bundle — giving users a clear picture of what each plugin adds to their Codex environment.

Cleaner Installation and Authentication Handling

Plugin installation has been refined with better handling for authentication flows and setup steps. When a plugin requires credentials or an initial configuration step, Codex now guides the user through that process inline rather than failing silently or requiring manual intervention. Removal is equally clean: uninstalling a plugin through the /plugins browser properly tears down its registered skills and connections without leaving orphaned configuration.

What Plugins Bundle

A single Codex plugin can contain three categories of capability:

• Reusable skills — custom tools and commands that extend what the agent can do inside a session
• App integrations — connections to external services (e.g., a Jira plugin that lets Codex create and update tickets)
• MCP server configurations — Model Context Protocol server definitions that expose structured context and tools to the underlying model

Bundling all three into one installable unit makes it practical to share a complete, opinionated Codex setup across a team. A shared plugin repository for an organization becomes the single source of truth for how Codex is configured across every developer's environment.

Improved Image Workflows

Two changes in 0.117.0 improve the experience around images in Codex sessions.

view_image Returns URLs in Code Mode

The view_image tool now returns the image URL as part of its output when operating in code mode. Previously, images were displayed inline in the TUI but their URLs were not surfaced in a machine-readable way, making it difficult to reference images programmatically in agent tasks. With this change, the image URL is returned alongside the rendered preview, enabling downstream tools and sub-agents to use the URL directly.

Generated Images Persist Across Session Resumptions

Images generated during a Codex session are now stored in the session history, so they remain accessible after a session is paused and resumed. Previously, resuming a session would lose the image artifacts, requiring regeneration. The new behavior means generated images are treated as persistent session artifacts, consistent with how text outputs and code changes are preserved.

Sub-Agent Path and Other Changes

The release includes a refinement to sub-agent path handling: sub-agents now resolve their working directory relative to /root/agent_a, a predictable base path that avoids collisions when multiple sub-agents are running concurrently within a forked thread. Additionally, the /title command picker is now available in both TUI modes (the standard interactive mode and the app-server TUI), and Codex maintains a persistent image history across the session lifecycle.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved duplicate reasoning summaries that appeared when models with extended thinking were used in certain session configurations
• Fixed the ChatGPT login flow for users authenticating via the device-code path
• Corrected terminal state restore behavior that could leave the terminal in an inconsistent state after Codex exited