Alpha· Major · Confirmed
Portable plugins and live MCP refresh land in Codex
Codex now reads Agent Plugins 1.0 manifests, refreshes MCP runtimes while threads are active, and expands skill tools, thread forking, workspace publishing, and network-approval safeguards.
The headline shift is plugin portability. Codex now recognizes Agent Plugins 1.0 root manifests, maps their skills and MCP configuration into its plugin model, and keeps Codex-specific apps, hooks, and interface metadata in an OpenAI extension or compatibility overlay.
MCP sessions also become more responsive to change. Codex prewarms runtime updates in the background, reconnects servers on explicit refresh, and propagates authentication, configuration, and managed-requirement changes across active threads without requiring users to throw conversations away.
The same alpha progression exposes executor-scoped skills through bounded list and read tools, adds persistent and ephemeral forks at paginated history boundaries, and tells plugin clients when workspace-directory publishing is actually supported.
Network approval handling is hardened around cancellation and concurrency: abandoned approval owners fail closed, denied executions are cancelled, waiting requests resolve, and simultaneous policy decisions cannot leave session caches in conflict.
Release context: the rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison contains 30 commits and 216 changed files. Four official prerelease tags—alpha.7 through alpha.10—were published in this period.
Evidence
Codex can load portable Agent Plugins 1.0 manifests.Why it matters: A plugin can use a root plugin.json with portable metadata, skills, and MCP configuration while keeping Codex-specific apps, hooks, and interface settings in an OpenAI extension or compatibility overlay.
Direct evidence · Confirmed
Supporting sources
- Support Agent Plugins manifests (#35105) commit · Official
- rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison tag-compare · Official
Conflicting sources
No conflicting sources recorded.
MCP runtimes can refresh in the background while threads remain active.Why it matters: Configuration, authentication, managed requirements, and explicit refreshes rebuild or reconnect MCP state without requiring users to discard active conversations.
Direct evidence · Confirmed
Supporting sources
- Prewarm MCP runtime updates in the background (#35144) commit · Official
- Refresh MCP runtimes when session auth changes (#35146) commit · Official
- Reconnect MCP servers on explicit refresh (#35151) commit · Official
- Refresh managed MCP requirements for active threads (#35213) commit · Official
- Refresh MCP config independently across threads (#35216) commit · Official
- rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison tag-compare · Official
Conflicting sources
No conflicting sources recorded.
Explicit executor skills are available through skill listing and reading tools.Why it matters: Authorized agents can discover executor-scoped skills and read their package resources through the same bounded skill interface instead of relying on host-only injection.
Direct evidence · Confirmed
Supporting sources
- Expose executor skills through skill tools (#35184) commit · Official
- Enable resource reads for explicit executor skills (#35198) commit · Official
- rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison tag-compare · Official
Conflicting sources
No conflicting sources recorded.
Threads can fork from paginated history boundaries without copying the full source rollout.Why it matters: Clients can create persistent or ephemeral branches from the latest point, a named last turn, or a point before a turn while preserving inherited context and isolating later source changes.
Direct evidence · Confirmed
Supporting sources
- Support paginated thread forks (#35220) commit · Official
- Support ephemeral forks of paginated threads (#35251) commit · Official
- rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison tag-compare · Official
Conflicting sources
No conflicting sources recorded.
Plugin clients can detect whether workspace publishing is allowed.Why it matters: Catalog and share responses carry a fail-closed capability flag so clients only offer workspace-directory publishing when the remote service explicitly supports it.
Direct evidence · Confirmed
Supporting sources
- Expose workspace plugin publish capability (#35254) commit · Official
- rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison tag-compare · Official
Conflicting sources
No conflicting sources recorded.
Network approvals fail closed when requests are abandoned or cancelled.Why it matters: Concurrent approvals are isolated by turn and execution, denied work is cancelled, waiting requests resolve safely, and simultaneous allow or deny decisions cannot leave inconsistent session policy caches.
Direct evidence · Confirmed
Supporting sources
- Harden network approval cancellation and concurrency (#35267) commit · Official
- rust-v0.146.0-alpha.6 to rust-v0.146.0-alpha.10 comparison tag-compare · Official
Conflicting sources
No conflicting sources recorded.
Availability
Availability note: these sources establish repository and CLI prerelease activity. They do not, by themselves, prove that the same changes were live in Codex Desktop.
Availability by surface
| Surface | Status | Claim-level evidence |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Prerelease · Documented · General |
|
| Desktop | Unknown · Unknown · Unknown |
|
| IDE | Unknown | No central-claim assertion recorded. |
| Cloud | Unknown | No central-claim assertion recorded. |
| Mobile | Unknown | No central-claim assertion recorded. |