openai / openai/codex

Support live phone control of native Windows CLI sessions

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app-server CLI enhancement remote windows-os
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
125k
Forks
19.4k
PR merge metrics
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Description

What variant of Codex are you using?

Codex CLI 0.153.4 on native Windows, with ChatGPT Android Remote and the Windows desktop app.

What feature would you like to see?

Support connecting the ChatGPT mobile app to an existing, running native Windows Codex CLI session while keeping the terminal open and usable, similar to the remote-control workflow available in Claude Code.

I would like to view progress, send follow-up prompts, answer questions and handle approvals from either the terminal or my phone, with both clients controlling the same running agent and conversation. Connecting the phone should not require exiting the CLI, interrupting the task, forking the conversation or starting a replacement session.

My interactive Windows desktop uses one account, while the agent runs under a separate Windows account through runas. Please support this arrangement without requiring an interactive desktop login to the agent account just to keep a mobile remote host available.

Additional information

Observed behaviour in my current setup:

  1. Start a native Windows Codex CLI session under the agent account through runas.
  2. Keep the CLI open.
  3. Connect Android Remote to the desktop app running under that same agent account in a separate, signed-in Windows session.
  4. Find the existing CLI conversation in Remote and open it.
  5. The phone displays flashing grey loading placeholders and "Directory and context unavailable" instead of opening the conversation.

The host logs show the Android client's thread/resume failing repeatedly with:

thread-store conflict: thread <thread-id> already has an active writer

The installed CLI also exposes experimental remote-control commands, but attempts to run the host/pairing flow on native Windows return:

codex app-server daemon lifecycle is only supported on Unix platforms

Related: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/37403 reports a similar active-writer symptom during CLI/Remote/Desktop handoff on macOS. This request is specifically for supported live terminal-and-phone control on native Windows, including the separate Windows agent-account workflow.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the native Windows runas setup and tracing the experimental remote-control commands, app-server daemon lifecycle, and failing thread/resume path. Done means Android Remote can attach to an existing native Windows CLI session while the terminal remains usable, including the separate agent-account workflow, without active-writer conflicts.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
android, rust
Domain
cli, mobile-dev, operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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