Codex Delegate MCP

Keep the brains. Delegate the build.

<img src="assets/logo-light.png" alt="Codex Delegate MCP logo" width="150" align="left" hspace="15">

Use your best coding agent where its judgment matters most: understanding the task, shaping the plan, and reviewing the result.

Codex Delegate is the MCP bridge that lets Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot — or any MCP client — hand implementation to the OpenAI Codex CLI, then get a clean, structured result back for review.

<br clear="left">

Frontier quality, kept

Your assistant does what frontier models are actually for: understands the task, writes a precise brief, reviews the finished diff. Codex holds its own as the implementer — guided and checked by a smarter orchestrator. The result reads like frontier work, because a frontier model planned it and signed off on it.

Done faster

Codex tears through multi-file edits while a frontier chat model would still be streaming the first file. You delegate, keep working with your assistant, and the diff shows up done.

Your limits stop being the bottleneck

Delegated work runs on the OpenAI Codex CLI and its own usage — separate from your orchestrator's chat quota. Your Claude, Cursor, or Copilot subscription spends tokens on the brief and the review; Codex does the grinding. On API? That's the per-token grind moved off your main bill.

You  →  your agent (plans & reviews)
              │  MCP delegate tool
              ▼
        Codex CLI (implements)
              │  edits your workspace
              ▼
        Clean result: what changed, which files, the thread id

Features

• Native plugins — install into Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot CLI and just say "delegate this to Codex". The shared skill teaches your agent how to delegate well.
• Truthful finals — only --output-last-message after a clean exit counts as the answer. No JSONL guesswork.
• Clean, typed results — final answer, filesReportedByAgent, session/threadId, plan JSON, warnings, and status.
• Plan / ask / review — structured plan mode, read-only ask, and Codex-native review.
• Cancel that works — one in-flight op with process-tree kill across platforms.
• Resume — continue the same Codex thread with resumeThreadId.
• Self-diagnosing — a doctor tool for setup and help-only deep checks.
• Works everywhere MCP does — VS Code, JetBrains, Windsurf, Visual Studio, and more.

Quick start

You need Node.js 18+ and the OpenAI Codex CLI 0.144.0+, already logged in (codex login).

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add andreilungeanu/codex-delegate-mcp
/plugin install codex-delegate-mcp@codex-delegate-mcp

Then just ask:

Delegate to Codex: migrate src/api from callbacks to async/await and update the tests, then walk me through what changed.

That's the whole loop — Claude writes the brief, Codex grinds through the files, Claude walks you through the diff.

Cursor

Add an MCP server in Cursor Settings → MCP (or project .cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codex-delegate-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "codex-delegate-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask Cursor to delegate implementation to Codex the same way.

GitHub Copilot CLI

copilot plugin install andreilungeanu/codex-delegate-mcp

More clients

<details> <summary><strong>VS Code</strong> — <code>.vscode/mcp.json</code></summary>

{
  "servers": {
    "codex-delegate-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "codex-delegate-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or run Chat: Install Plugin From Source with this repository's URL.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>JetBrains AI Assistant</strong> — Settings → Tools → AI Assistant → MCP</summary>

Under Settings → Tools → AI Assistant → Model Context Protocol (MCP), add a server with command npx and arguments -y codex-delegate-mcp.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>Windsurf</strong> — <code>~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json</code></summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codex-delegate-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "codex-delegate-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Heads-up: Cascade caps you at 100 tools across all servers.

</details>

<details> <summary><strong>Visual Studio 2022</strong> — <code>%USERPROFILE%.mcp.json</code></summary>

{
  "servers": {
    "codex-delegate-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "codex-delegate-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Requires 17.14+. Note the top-level key is servers, not mcpServers.

</details>

Kiro, Kilo Code, and any other MCP client

Add the following server to the client's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codex-delegate-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "codex-delegate-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Notes

This is a worker for an orchestrator host — not a replacement for Codex's first-party codex mcp-server. The host writes the brief and reviews the git diff; this bridge runs codex exec --json with hooks disabled and --ignore-user-config, then returns evidence the host can trust. Project .codex config may still apply under Codex's normal precedence — treat the workspace as trusted.

Optional: set CODEX_DELEGATE_COMMAND to an absolute Codex binary. On Windows the standalone install under ~/.codex/packages/standalone/releases/ is preferred over the PATH shim.

Defaults: model=gpt-5.6-terra, reasoningEffort=high, network=false, fast=false, idle timeout 90s, hard cap 1h (timeoutMs).

License

MIT © Andrei Lungeanu

_{Security · Privacy · Terms · Changelog}