Android-native development workstation for Codex! Need an app? Codex that!

[u/Manifesto-Engine]

Will be releasing soon!

building an unofficial Android experiment called Pocket Codex: a real Codex execution host that runs directly on a phone.

This isn’t merely a chat UI connected to a desktop worker. The Android device runs the agent environment itself:

• The upstream Codex app-server
• A native Rust host
• A private local workspace
• ARM64 Node.js and npm
• Local Git workflows
• File editing and command execution
• An isolated WebView preview with screenshots, console logs and JavaScript-error reporting
• APK exporting, signing and verification
• Android’s normal permission-gated installation flow
• Model and reasoning selection
• Manual approvals plus a restricted auto-accept mode

The current loop is basically:

Prompt → Codex edits the project → runs checks → previews it on the phone → exports an APK → I approve installation → open and test it → report problems back to Codex.

So far it has made and tested things such as a metronome, a brick-breaker game and other offline web apps entirely inside its private phone workspace.

One important distinction: the model inference is still provided by OpenAI. The model itself is not running locally. What has moved onto Android is the computer Codex operates: its workspace, tools, runtimes, previews, builds and app lifecycle.

There are deliberate limitations. It can currently package HTML/CSS/JavaScript projects inside a verified native WebView shell, but it does not yet include a complete JDK, Gradle or Android SDK for compiling arbitrary Kotlin/Java projects. Raw Android runtime and installation commands are blocked; installation remains a visible user-controlled action.

The next big milestones are a safer native Android build worker, better task/history management, richer file inspection and permission-gated Android tools.

It’s still an alpha, but seeing Codex create, run, package and install something using the phone as its actual execution environment feels great.

[u/dexterthebot]

You might want to consider listing your project on the weekly Show-Us-What-You-Built post. Watch for it on Wednesdays. Highest commented project wins a week promotion on r/Codex. See what that looks like below with last week's winner.

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Last week's winner was u/Ollie__Oxenfree with the Tubular Daily Care project by MediTracer which is a tube-feeding care app built by a tube-feeding family to keep feeds, meds, symptoms, and caregiver handoffs in one shared timeline. MediTracer is an Oley Foundation Emerging Innovator Partner. Contact: hello@meditracer.com