Codex Office
Watch local Codex agents work — privately, inside VS Code.
Codex Office is a local-first, read-only VS Code sidebar for visualizing Codex
sessions, nested subagents, and basic live status with animated pixel-art
characters.
What it shows
- Workspace-scoped root sessions and reconstructed subagent hierarchy.
- Basic live states from the optional Shared observer: Working, Waiting,
Failed, and Idle.
- Reported account-capacity windows and reset time when Codex provides them.
- Honest
Unreported labels when current status is unavailable.
Account capacity is not token billing, cost, credits, or per-agent usage.
Codex Office does not claim per-agent token totals because the supported
content-free observer does not report them.
Privacy and safety
- Runs locally and makes no telemetry or remote persistence calls.
- Never projects prompts, responses, commands, file contents, or workspace
paths into the sidebar.
- Observes only; it cannot steer, stop, resume, or submit work to an agent.
- Uses strict, bounded provider schemas and fails closed when evidence is
incomplete.
See SECURITY.md and the
privacy requirements for the full policy.
Requirements and live status
- VS Code
^1.96.0 is declared. The Marketplace beta release record states
which versions have actually been tested.
- Persisted workspace inventory works without experimental configuration.
- Basic live status is currently pinned to Codex CLI
0.145.0 and requires
its owner-only managed App Server daemon.
To opt in, enable Codex Office › Experimental Shared App Server in VS Code
settings, ensure the supported local Codex daemon is already running, then
reload VS Code. The extension never starts, stops, or configures that daemon.
If the shared observer is unavailable, the room safely falls back to persisted
inventory and labels status as Unreported.
This integration is experimental and disabled by default because the upstream
local transport may change.
Product principles
- Codex-first and local-first.
- Read-only observer before control features.
- Report telemetry honestly; never present estimates as billing facts.
- Accessible even when animation is disabled.
- Provider/domain/UI boundaries must stay independently testable.
Quick start
Install a reviewed VSIX
In VS Code, choose Extensions: Install from VSIX…, select the reviewed
release artifact, and open Codex Office from the Activity Bar.
Develop locally
corepack enable
pnpm install
pnpm check
pnpm dev
Keep pnpm dev running, then press F5 in VS Code and choose
Run Codex Office Extension if prompted. The checked-in launch configuration
loads the current workspace build in an Extension Development Host regardless
of the active editor. Open Codex Office in the Activity Bar. The development
host starts without a workspace; use File → Open Folder… there when testing
workspace-scoped discovery. The debug profile disables unrelated installed
extensions so their output does not pollute the shared Debug Console.
Documentation map
Current limitations
- Live status is basic lifecycle state, not tool-level activity.
- Sessions not loaded in the shared daemon remain
Unreported.
- Per-agent token usage is intentionally unavailable.
- Marketplace publication remains a separate human approval gate.
Contributing
Read CONTRIBUTING.md, AGENTS.md, and the nearest nested AGENTS.md before making changes.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
