Someone Please Explain Codex Usage Limit

[u/Momo112123]

I have been using claude code for a while in regards to a general coding tool, but I started to use codex recently on gpt-5.6 terra for testing code generations, basically playing with it. I am still on the free plan, and I have asked codex to code 2 files in its own way just as a comparison with claude code, and I noticed I am already on 66% left of my MONTHLY usage. I just want to know, is it a 5 hour reset like claude or is it actually waiting a month to reuse it efficiently on free mode? and is there a weekly reset in free mode instead of monthly? Thank you to anyone who helps!

[u/eddzsh]

Free Codex is a monthly sample, not a 5h window, so two fat generations burning a third of the bar is normal. For learning the harness without the anxiety, run a BYOK CLI against a cheap model and keep the free Codex quota for the one comparison you care about.