The Pulse
Codex Users Ask OpenAI to Disable Daemon Auto-Start
An OpenAI Codex CLI issue asks the company to make its persistent background daemon opt-in after version 0.157.0 enabled automatic startup. The request remains open, while a separate project has disabled the feature in its own Codex configu
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
A 374 MB copy runs apart from the CLI
OpenAI Codex CLI users are asking the company to make automatic background-daemon startup opt-in, after version 0.157.0 began launching a persistent server during interactive sessions. The issue author estimates that the daemon copies about 374 MB of Codex components into a separate directory under the user’s home folder. The request, opened on September 25, remains open as of October 13; the repository lists no assignee, milestone or linked pull request.
According to the report, the daemon can outlive the terminal window that started it and run from its own copy of the software. A detached updater checks for releases five minutes after startup and then hourly, downloads updates and restarts the backend. The author says that makes the running backend’s version independent of the one installed through a package manager.
Version 0.157.0 changed the default
The issue author says the shift began with Codex 0.157.0, which enabled the daemon_auto_start feature by default. The author’s test setup also exposed a mismatch between the foreground CLI and the daemon: a wrapper supplied a different HTTPS_PROXY value for each invocation, but the daemon retained the environment from the session that first launched it.
“For a CLI, the least surprising default is that the backend lives and dies with the window, runs the binary I installed, and doesn't update itself in the background.”
Yihua-Liu-1997, author of the GitHub issue
The author argues that a shared daemon can still serve Codex Remote Control and the desktop app, or users who start it explicitly. The request is about changing the CLI’s default behavior, not removing the daemon feature.
Package installs expose a separate failure
A related issue documents one concrete problem after the default changed: a user on Arch Linux reported that Codex 0.157.0 would not open a usable session with the distribution’s package. In that report, codex --no-daemon and disabling daemon_auto_start restored the interactive prompt, while the official complete package started the daemon successfully.
That report points to differences in package layout: the Arch package did not include the metadata and bundled-resource arrangement Codex’s daemon installation expected. Users also reported startup trouble on Windows and other Linux distributions in the discussion on the main issue. Those are user reports, not evidence that every installation fails or that OpenAI has confirmed one root cause.
Workarounds are available, but no default change is confirmed
The issue author’s workaround is to run codex features disable daemon_auto_start, stop the daemon, terminate its separate updater process and remove the managed daemon package directory. The report warns that codex app-server daemon stop alone left the updater running on that user’s system. That cleanup detail matters: switching off automatic startup does not necessarily stop processes already running.
A separate project’s October 13 commit sets daemon_auto_start = false in its own system-level Codex configuration. That change applies to that project’s environment; it is not an OpenAI code change and does not establish that the CLI’s default has been reversed.
As of October 13, the OpenAI Codex issue remains open, with no assignee, milestone or linked pull request. The available record shows a user request, user-reported workarounds and an independent project-level configuration—not a confirmed OpenAI decision to disable daemon auto-start by default.