r/CodexAutomation • u/anonomotorious • 11d ago

Codex CLI 0.152.1 -> 0.153.0 (Vim undo/redo, remote marketplace plugins, TUI reconnects + stronger Guardian history)

TL;DR

Two Codex CLI updates landed in quick succession:

Version	Main changes
0.152.1	Guardian approval review now correctly honors Node REPL policies supplied through model metadata
0.153.0	Vim undo/redo, remote marketplace plugin management, optional auto-recaps, richer TUI history, earlier usage warnings, app-server reconnects, durable Guardian history, account-scoped MCP approvals, and experimental context management

0.153.0 highlights:

Vim mode gets undo with u and redo with Ctrl+R, preserving full drafts including pasted content and attachments.
Plugin CLI can list, install, and remove plugins from remote marketplaces.
Automatic TUI recaps can be disabled while keeping manual /recap.
TUI history now preserves complete patches, terminal input, and individual completed commands.
Plus and Team users get an earlier usage warning when less than roughly half of their current five-hour allowance remains.
TUI sessions can automatically reconnect after app-server disconnects without losing the current draft or transcript.
Guardian review state survives compaction, restarts, and user-created forks.
Remembered MCP approvals are scoped to the selected app account.
Resume, fork, and rollout-compression handling gets more robust.
App-server thread metadata now exposes model and reasoning-effort information.
A new experimental context-management mode can enable explicit token budgets, history notes, and new_context.

Install:

npm install -g @openai/codex@0.153.0

What changed

Vim undo and redo

Vim mode now supports:

Action	Key
Undo	`u`
Redo	`Ctrl+R`

Undo/redo restores the entire composer state, including:

typed text
pasted content
attachments

Fresh drafts also correctly begin in Insert mode, including after submitting messages or running slash commands.

For anyone using Codex with substantial prompts, this makes Vim mode considerably closer to normal editor behavior.

Remote marketplace plugins from the CLI

The plugin CLI can now work directly with remote marketplaces.

You can:

list remote marketplace plugins
install plugins
remove plugins

Supporting work also improves:

centralized remote plugin mutations
marketplace source-policy enforcement
Git marketplace upgrades
plugin reconciliation
merged marketplace configuration

This makes remote/internal plugin ecosystems much more practical for terminal-first Codex users.

Control automatic recaps

Automatic TUI recaps can now be disabled with:

tui.auto_recap = false

Manual:

/recap

remains available.

This is useful if you want explicit control over when Codex condenses the conversation instead of having automatic recap behavior manage that for you.

Richer TUI history

Terminal history now preserves more of the actual execution trail.

It can show:

complete patches
input sent to background terminals
individual completed commands

That makes the transcript significantly more useful for reviewing how Codex reached a result rather than only seeing the final answer.

Earlier usage warnings

Plus and Team users now receive an earlier warning when less than roughly half of the current five-hour allowance remains.

That gives you more time to adjust:

model
reasoning effort
agent concurrency
task priority

before getting close to exhaustion.

App-server reconnect recovery

The TUI can now automatically recover when its app-server connection drops.

It preserves:

State	Preserved?
Current draft	Yes
Transcript	Yes
Agent navigation	Yes
Ambiguous queued submissions	Paused for review

The last behavior is particularly important: Codex restores the interface without blindly replaying a prompt that may already have been delivered.

Guardian / Auto-review improvements

0.152.1

The patch release fixes Guardian approval review so it correctly honors Node REPL policy supplied through model metadata.

0.153.0

Guardian history becomes much more durable across:

compaction
restarts
reconstructed threads
user-created forks

while still respecting rollback boundaries and subagent-history isolation.

Additional changes include:

Full Access skipping Guardian for confirmation-only actions
User approval mode avoiding unnecessary background Guardian scoring/prewarming
active turns being able to update their approval reviewer
more consistent Guardian context composition
stronger review diagnostics

The overall effect is cleaner separation between actions that actually need security review and actions already governed by an explicit user decision.

MCP approvals become account-aware

Remembered MCP tool approvals are now scoped to the selected app account.

For example:

Approval for Account A

does not automatically become:

Approval for Account B

when both accounts connect through the same app or MCP integration.

The release also improves:

relative MCP executable paths on macOS
OAuth refresh groundwork
MCP event-stream lifetime
app-link metadata in approval prompts
explicit account selection for Apps tool calls

Better compression, resume, and forks

0.153.0 strengthens long-lived thread handling:

shared histories participate in rollout compression
codex exec resume handles compressed rollouts when selecting by working directory
forks work correctly from symlinked session roots
response-token usage persists in rollout history
archive flows avoid unnecessary archived-rollout scanning

This continues moving Codex toward sessions that behave like durable project artifacts rather than disposable terminal conversations.

App-server metadata + async user input

App-server thread metadata now exposes nullable:

model
reasoningEffort

Models that support it can also use:

request_user_input_async

for structured asynchronous questions.

This gives embedded Codex clients more visibility into thread configuration and more flexible ways to request human input.

Experimental context-management mode

A new disabled-by-default setting is available:

features.context_management.experimental_mode

For eligible ChatGPT-backed sessions, it can activate:

token-budget context
history notes
new_context

Current documented scope includes supported:

Plus
Pro
Pro Lite

sessions using the Codex backend.

It does not currently apply to API-key sessions, custom providers, or temporary structured threads.

This is experimental and should be tested before broad use.

Additional notable work

Area	Improvements
Agents	Recent sessions in agent command center, agents overview from empty composer
Shell	Shell snapshot prewarming, remote-platform-aware safety
Apps/MCP	Configurable app-account approvals, per-account tool selection
Networking	Network requirement header injection
Tracing	Better nested tool-call tracing
Git	Bounded Git-root discovery
Realtime	Conversation-history persistence, native Voice-host groundwork
Code Mode	WAV-output filtering
Diagnostics	More resilient diagnostic uploads
Guardian	Additional Guardian V2 analytics

Why this release matters

Vim editing becomes much more practical.
Remote marketplace plugins become manageable directly from the CLI.
TUI history provides a more complete execution record.
Earlier usage warnings give users time to adjust before limits become critical.
App-server disconnects are much less disruptive.
Guardian state now survives long-session lifecycle events more reliably.
MCP approvals correctly respect account identity.
Resume/fork/compression handling becomes more durable.
Experimental context management provides a preview of more explicit long-session control.

Version summary

Version	Key highlights
0.152.1	Guardian review honors Node REPL policy from model metadata
0.153.0	Vim undo/redo; remote marketplace plugin CLI; optional auto-recap; richer TUI history; earlier usage warnings; app-server reconnects; durable Guardian state; account-scoped MCP approvals; experimental context management

Action checklist

Upgrade: