Codex CLI 0.96.0: Thread Compaction & Rate Limits

TL;DR

• Async thread compaction API lets you trigger cleanup without blocking
• Websocket rate limit signaling now available via new codex.rate_limits event
• unified_exec enabled on all non-Windows platforms for better execution consistency

New

• Async thread compaction — thread/compact added to v2 app-server API as an async RPC trigger, so you can start compaction and track completion separately without blocking your session.
• Websocket rate limit signaling — New codex.rate_limits event provides rate limit metadata over websockets with parity for ETag and reasoning metadata handling.
• Unified execution on non-Windows — unified_exec now enabled across all non-Windows platforms for consistent command execution behavior.
• Source provenance in requirements — Constrained requirement values now include source information, enabling source-aware debugging in UI flows like /debug-config.

Fixed

• Esc key handling in TUI notes — When notes are open in request_user_input, pressing Esc now exits notes mode instead of interrupting the entire session.
• Thread listing resilience — Thread listing now queries the state DB first (including archived threads) and falls back to filesystem traversal only when needed, improving correctness and resilience.
• Thread path lookup validation — Fixed thread path resolution to require that the resolved file actually exists, preventing invalid thread-id resolutions.
• Dynamic tool injection atomicity — Tool injection now runs in a single transaction to avoid partial state updates.
• Request rule guidance — Refined request_rule guidance used in approval-policy prompting to correct rule behavior.

Under the Hood

• Migrated state DB helpers to versioned SQLite filename scheme and cleaned up legacy state files during initialization.
• Expanded runtime telemetry with websocket timing metrics and simplified internal metadata flow in core client plumbing.

Update via: npm install -g @openai/codex-cli@0.96.0 or check the full release on GitHub.

Source: Codex