About

Codex and Claude Code have become a must-have for every developer. This tool allows us to code directly from our phones in a friendly and flexible manner.

How

We run this service on a developer's local server. For example, Mac Minis have become more and more popular and many people have some kind of always-running machine. The service implements a web interface and an API. It allows for multiple projects to be configured.

Codex web cli

Codex CLI is very good. But it also works in a server mode and has a great API. This allows us to build a multi-project multi-task web CLI. Those are basically chats in the web version or in the app.

Security and authentication

The server and the interface (web or app) need to share a secret. The web UI exchanges that shared secret for a short-lived session token. The token is used for backend API calls and websocket connections.

Configurations

Besides the token - we need to configure the endpoint of our server. So some kind of external IP address is needed. A VPN to the local network would also work. All configuration is done in a codex-with-me.yaml file.

Development

npm install
npm run dev

The default server binds to 127.0.0.1:8011. The React development server can be started with npm run dev:web.

Build both the backend and web UI:

npm run build

The production server serves the built UI from /.

Default local login secret:

codex-with-me

Current API surface:

• GET /health
• GET /api/auth/status
• POST /api/auth/login
• POST /api/auth/logout
• GET /api/projects
• POST /api/projects
• GET /api/projects/:projectId
• GET /api/projects/:projectId/sessions
• POST /api/projects/:projectId/sessions
• GET /api/projects/:projectId/sessions/:sessionId
• DELETE /api/projects/:projectId/sessions/:sessionId

Session websocket:

• /ws/projects/:projectId/sessions/:sessionId?token=:sessionToken

Nginx reverse proxy

When serving Codex With Me through nginx, proxy websocket upgrades for /ws/ separately from normal HTTP traffic:

map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
    default upgrade;
    '' close;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your-host.example;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8011;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

    location /ws/ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8011;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_read_timeout 3600s;
        proxy_send_timeout 3600s;
    }
}

If /ws/... returns a JSON 404, nginx is forwarding it as a normal HTTP GET instead of a websocket upgrade.