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Welcome to the Codex CLI contributing guide! We’re building Codex in the open with the community and value your input.

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Contribution Policy

External contributions are by invitation onlyAt this time, the Codex team does not accept unsolicited code contributions. Pull requests that have not been explicitly invited by a member of the Codex team will be closed without review.

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How You Can Help

While we don’t accept unsolicited PRs, there are many ways to contribute:

Report Bugs

Open a bug report or verify that an existing report already covers the issue you encountered.

Share Analysis

Contribute reproduction details, root-cause hypotheses, or high-level fix outlines in issue threads.

Propose Features

Open an issue describing your proposal or upvote existing enhancement requests.

Join Discussions

Participate in GitHub Discussions to help shape the future of Codex.

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When PRs Are Invited

The Codex team may invite an external contributor to submit a pull request when:
  • The problem is well understood
  • The proposed approach aligns with the team’s intended solution
  • The issue is deemed high-impact and high-priority
The most valuable contributions consistently come from community members who demonstrate deep understanding of a problem domain. That expertise is most helpful when shared early through detailed bug reports, analysis, and design discussion in issues.

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Why This Policy?

In the past, the Codex team accepted external pull requests for bug fixes. While we appreciated the effort and engagement from the community, this model did not scale well. Many contributions were made without full visibility into:
  • Architectural context
  • System-level constraints
  • Near-term roadmap considerations
Reviewing and iterating on these PRs often took more time than implementing the fix directly, and diverted attention from higher-priority work. We focus external contributions on discussion, analysis, and feedback, and reserve code changes for cases where a targeted invitation makes sense.

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Getting Started

If you’ve been invited to contribute code, here’s where to begin:
1

Set Up Your Environment

Follow the development environment setup guide to prepare your local workspace.
2

Build the Project

Learn how to build Codex from source for both Rust and TypeScript components.
3

Run Tests

Familiarize yourself with the testing workflows to validate your changes.
4

Follow Guidelines

Review our contribution guidelines for code style and commit conventions.

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Community Values

Be Kind

Treat others with respect; we follow the Contributor Covenant.

Assume Good Intent

Written communication is hard - err on the side of generosity.

Teach & Learn

If you spot something confusing, open an issue or discussion with suggestions.

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Getting Help

If you run into problems setting up the project, would like feedback on an idea, or just want to say hi:
  • Open a Discussion topic
  • Jump into the relevant issue
  • Reach out in the community channels
We are happy to help. Together we can make Codex CLI an incredible tool.

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Security & Responsible AI

Have you discovered a vulnerability or have concerns about model output?Please email [email protected] and we will respond promptly.