Users Report Codex CLI 0.157.0 Auto-Starts Persistent Daemon and Background Updater

Users of Codex CLI version 0.157.0 report that opening an interactive session now automatically starts a persistent background daemon (codex app-server --managed-daemon). This process runs without a TTY, survives the closure of the Codex window by reparenting to PID 1, and continues until explicitly stopped or the system reboots.

Behavioral Changes

The daemon copies the entire platform package (~374 MB) into ~/.codex/packages/app-server-daemon/releases/<version>/, decoupling the backend version from the CLI version installed via package managers like npm. Additionally, a detached updater (codex app-server daemon pid-update-loop) checks for updates five minutes after start and then hourly, potentially restarting the backend and killing active turns.

User Impact and Workarounds

The automatic start and self-updating behavior have caused issues for users relying on specific environment variables (such as HTTPS_PROXY) and those using package managers, as the daemon ignores later session configurations and bypasses standard update paths. Users report that codex app-server daemon stop fails to terminate the updater loop, requiring manual intervention.

A common workaround involves disabling the feature and cleaning up the daemon files:

• codex features disable daemon_auto_start
• codex app-server daemon stop
• pkill -f 'app-server daemon pid-update-loop'
• rm -rf ~/.codex/packages/app-server-daemon

Community Feedback

Community members argue that a self-updating daemon is appropriate for desktop apps but surprising for a CLI, where the backend should typically live and die with the window. Requests include making daemon_auto_start opt-in by default and ensuring the daemon respects externally managed executables to prevent version mismatches.