OpenAI Codex for VSCode has been released

Additional information may be found here: https://developers.openai.com/codex/ide

Am seemingly one of very few people to somewhat reliably get usable results from GPT-5 and have been relying on Codex Cloud more and more, especially as an alternative to having to remote into my computer when prompting for minor changes on the phone. This new IDE plugin, naturally, takes very strongly after Cursor, Windsurf, etc. but also does better than some in unifying both Cloud and CLI changes, something I have seen others separate more strictly in their UI.

Last time I tested a none CLI LLM coding assistance solutions was when Amazon released KIRO and that was mainly focused on verifying whether there is something I could/should adapt from their way of doing requirements/planning implementations, so I am no expert in the UI of alternatives like Cursor, Windsurf, etc. but in my limited testing, Codex makes diffs very pleasant to read. Would like the added ability to expand individual files over only having them in a collapsable list via "View changes" though. I also very much enjoy the Todo list implementation I have seen on some tasks, it is a bit more informative than the more broad goals Claude Code or CLI Codex tend to provide, while retaining the full, step-by-step work log as an added source of information. Have not found a way to reliably trigger this feature though.

Also, some aria-labels are overflowing/covered by other UI elements making them unreadable and I'd prefer this to be placed in a positionable panel, rather than the primary side bar, cause as it stands, one cannot have the Codex panel and e.g. version control, file explorer or search open. Lastly, trepidations of unrestricted local LLM use aside, I don't think the "Agent (full access)" button should expand like that: https://imgur.com/a/T1slbxk

Am also testing the new Code Review implementation they have added, was surprised to see the model communicate via emojis/reactions of all things, but haven't yet tried any LLM code review solutions so again don't know how these usually communicate state/provide confirmation of actions: https://developers.openai.com/codex/cloud