February 2, 2026
Agent wars, Mac edition
The Codex App
OpenAI’s Mac ‘agent command center’ sparks hype, side‑eye, and phone FOMO
TLDR: OpenAI launched a Mac app that manages multiple AI helpers and raised usage limits, even tossing Codex into ChatGPT Free for a while. Comments split: some call it desperate marketing, others say it feels like having mid-level engineers on tap; everyone wonders if Anthropic will fire back.
OpenAI’s new Codex app for Mac has the dev crowd buzzing—and bickering. The app is a command center for juggling multiple AI helpers (“agents”), reviewing changes, and letting them chip away at long jobs in parallel. There’s a promo too: Codex is included with ChatGPT Free for a bit, plus paid users get doubled usage caps across the app, the command line, coding editors, and the cloud.
Cue the comments: one top reply translated the promo as pure panic—“we’re desperate for users”—while others cheered the Mac polish and voice dictation. SunshineTheCat admitted phone-app FOMO, joking they’d already imagined their dream mobile workflows. geooff_ liked the built‑in “worktrees” that let agents edit safely, but noted Claude Code already has a bustling tool scene. samuelstros said this looks like what Emdash and Conductor built—just now first‑party—and asked if Anthropic will answer.
Then the hype train: strongpigeon claimed Codex feels like having “average L3-L4 engineers” on call. The demo of Codex solo‑building a racing game with image and web skills (over 7 million tokens!) sparked “AI intern army” memes and “manager mode” jokes. Bottom line: half the thread is impressed, half suspicious, everyone’s watching the agent wars. Free trial vibes, skepticism still simmering.
Key Points
- •OpenAI launched the Codex app for macOS to manage multiple AI agents, run tasks in parallel, and collaborate on long-running work.
- •For a limited time, Codex is included with ChatGPT Free and Go, and rate limits are doubled on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans across all Codex surfaces.
- •The app organizes agent threads by projects, supports diff review and editor integration, and includes built-in git worktree support for conflict-free multi-agent development.
- •Codex imports session history and configuration from the Codex CLI and IDE extension for seamless adoption in existing projects.
- •Codex now uses “skills” to connect to tools and run workflows; a demo showed Codex building a racing game using GPT Image and a web development skill over more than 7 million tokens.