codex-web-ui

🌐 Codex App Web UI Enabler

🚀 Run OpenAI Codex Desktop in Your Browser — From Any Device 🚀

Codex Desktop's full UI — chat, skills, file editing, code execution — accessible from any browser on any device. No Electron window required.

One script. Full Web UI. Anywhere. 🌍

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                    E N A B L E R

🤯 What Is This?

OpenAI's Codex Desktop is a powerful AI coding agent — but it's locked inside an Electron window on a single machine. What if you could access it from any browser, on any device, anywhere on your network?

We reverse-engineered the minified Electron bundle and built scripts that patch the app at runtime to expose the full Codex UI over HTTP + WebSocket. The same scripts also unlock a hidden SSH remote execution engine that was already compiled into the binary but never wired up.

One command. Full Web UI. Plus SSH remote control. No recompilation.

📱 See It In Action — Codex in Your Browser, From Any Device

Yes, that's a phone. Yes, that's Codex. Yes, it's running on a Mac across the network.

💬 Live AI Chat Session Full Codex conversation running on a Mac, controlled from an Android phone over the network. GPT-5.3-Codex responding in real-time. The address bar says it all: 100.107.32.83:5999 — that's a remote Mac.

🧩 Skills Manager — From Your Pocket Browsing and managing Codex skills (Playwright, Oracle Cloud CLI, Three.js, YouTube Search...) from a mobile browser. Full desktop functionality, zero compromises.

🤯 This is not a mockup. This is a real Codex Desktop instance running on macOS, patched with our Web UI Enabler scripts, accessed from a mobile phone browser over Tailscale. Every feature works — chat, skills, file editing, code execution — all from your pocket.

⚡ Quick Start

# Run directly from npm (no clone needed)
npx -y codex-web-ui --port 5999

Open http://127.0.0.1:5999/ and you're flying. ✈️

🌍 What Can You Actually Do With This?

With the Web UI enabled, Codex breaks free from the Electron window — and with SSH mode unlocked, it reaches any machine you own:

🎯 Use Case	💡 Description
📱 Code From Your Phone	Open Codex in any mobile browser — full chat, skills, file editing, code execution
💻 Use Any Browser	Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Arc — no Electron install needed on the client
🌐 Access Over the Network	Tailscale, LAN, VPN — access your Codex instance from anywhere securely
🖥️ Control Your Mac Remotely	SSH into your MacBook from anywhere and let Codex operate it as if you're sitting in front of it
🐧 Orchestrate Linux Servers	Point Codex at your Ubuntu/Debian/Arch boxes and run AI-powered coding sessions remotely
🪟 Manage Windows via WSL	Connect through WSL2 SSH and bring Codex intelligence to your Windows dev environment
🏠 Command Your Homelab	Proxmox, TrueNAS, Raspberry Pi clusters — Codex becomes your AI sysadmin
☁️ Cloud Fleet Management	AWS EC2, Oracle Cloud, DigitalOcean droplets — manage entire fleets from one Codex window
🔧 Web Service Orchestration	Nginx configs, Docker containers, systemd services — edit and deploy across machines
🧪 Remote CI/CD Pipelines	Trigger builds, inspect logs, fix failing tests on remote CI runners in real-time
📡 IoT & Edge Devices	SSH into Raspberry Pis, Jetson Nanos, or any edge device and code directly on them
🏗️ Multi-Machine Refactoring	Coordinate code changes across microservices running on different hosts simultaneously

TL;DR: Codex in your browser + SSH to any machine = your entire infrastructure as one AI-powered IDE. 🧠

📁 Project Structure

codex-unpacked-toolkit/
├── 🌐 launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh     # WebUI mode launcher (browser access)
├── 🔧 launch_codex_unpacked.sh          # SSH unlock & debug launcher
├── 🔌 webui-bridge.js                    # Browser-side WebSocket ↔ IPC bridge
├── 📖 PROJECT_STATE.md                    # Living project state & patching reference
├── 📂 images/                            # Screenshots & proof it works
│   ├── mobile-chat-session.jpeg          # Codex chat from mobile phone
│   └── mobile-skills-browser.jpeg        # Skills manager from mobile phone
└── 📂 skills/
    └── launch-codex-unpacked/
        └── SKILL.md                      # Codex skill definition

🌐 launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh — Browser-Based Codex

The main event. Run Codex in your browser. No Electron window needed. Access from any device on your network.

What It Does

• 📦 Extracts app.asar — Same unpacking as above
• 💉 Injects WebUI runtime patch — Embeds a full HTTP server + WebSocket bridge directly into the Electron main process (~800 lines of runtime injection)
• 🩹 Patches renderer bundle — Fixes a roots guard compatibility issue in the React renderer that crashes in WebUI mode
• 🔌 Copies webui-bridge.js — Installs the browser-side bridge into the webview directory
• 🚀 Launches headless Electron — Starts with --webui flag, hides all native windows, serves UI over HTTP
• 🔐 Optional token auth — Protect your instance with --token for secure remote access
• 🌍 Origin allowlist — Restrict which domains can connect via --origins
• 🖥️ Auto-opens browser — Polls the server and opens your default browser when ready

The Injected Runtime Includes

• 🌐 Full HTTP static file server (serves Codex webview assets)
• 🔄 RFC 6455-compliant WebSocket server (zero dependencies, hand-rolled frame parser)
• 🔒 Timing-safe token authentication (Bearer, header, query param, and cookie)
• 🛡️ Security headers (X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, CORP, Referrer-Policy)
• 📡 IPC-to-WebSocket bridge (intercepts webContents.send and mirrors to all connected clients)
• 🚦 Rate limiting (5000 messages/minute for local, configurable)
• 👤 Single-client policy (new tab takes over, old tab gets disconnected)
• 💉 SPA fallback with automatic webui-bridge.js injection into HTML

Options

--app <path>           Custom Codex.app path
--port <n>             WebUI port (default: 5999)
--token <value>        Auth token for secure access 🔐
--origins <csv>        Allowed origins (comma-separated)
--bridge <path>        Custom webui-bridge.js path
--user-data-dir <path> Chromium user data dir override
--no-open              Don't auto-open browser
--keep-temp            Keep extracted app dir

Examples

# Run from npm package
npx -y codex-web-ui --port 5999

# Basic local access
./launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh

# Secure remote access with auth
./launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh --port 8080 --token mysecrettoken

# Access from specific origins only
./launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh --origins "https://mysite.com,http://localhost:3000"

🔧 launch_codex_unpacked.sh — The SSH Unlocker

Bonus superpower. This script extracts, patches, and launches Codex with the hidden SSH remote execution feature fully activated.

What It Does

• 📦 Extracts app.asar — Unpacks the Codex Electron bundle into a temp directory using @electron/asar
• 🔑 Injects SSH host into global state — Writes your SSH host into .codex-global-state.json so the app recognizes it as a configured remote
• 🧬 Patches the main bundle — Performs a surgical AST-level patch on the minified main-*.js to auto-select the SSH host on startup (finds the startup sequence and rewires it to check electron-ssh-hosts first)
• 🔍 Enables Node Inspector — Launches with --inspect for live debugging (port 9229 by default)
• 🌐 Enables Chromium Remote Debug — Opens --remote-debugging-port (9222) for DevTools Protocol access
• ✅ SSH preflight check — Validates connectivity to your host with BatchMode=yes and ConnectTimeout=6 before launching
• 🧹 Auto-cleanup — Temp directory is removed on exit (unless --keep-temp)

Options

--app <path>                 Custom Codex.app path (default: /Applications/Codex.app)
--user-data-dir <path>       Chromium user data dir override
--inspect-port <n>           Node inspector port (default: 9229)
--remote-debug-port <n>      Chromium remote debug port (default: 9222)
--ssh-host <user@host>       The SSH host to unlock and auto-connect 🔑
--no-inspect                 Disable Node inspector
--no-remote-debug            Disable Chromium remote debugging
--keep-temp                  Keep extracted app dir for inspection

Example

# Unlock SSH to your homelab server with custom ports
./launch_codex_unpacked.sh \
  --ssh-host ubuntu@192.168.1.100 \
  --inspect-port 9230 \
  --remote-debug-port 9223

🔌 webui-bridge.js — The Browser-Side Bridge

Makes the browser think it's Electron. Replaces window.electronBridge with a WebSocket-backed implementation.

What It Does

• 🔍 Detects environment — Only activates when the native Electron preload bridge is absent
• 🔄 Establishes WebSocket connection — Connects to /ws with automatic reconnection (exponential backoff, 500ms → 5s)
• 📨 Implements full electronBridge API — sendMessageFromView, sendWorkerMessageFromView, subscribeToWorkerMessages, and more
• 📬 Message queue — Buffers outbound messages while disconnected, flushes on reconnect
• 📡 Event forwarding — Translates WebSocket packets into browser MessageEvents that the React app expects
• 🔄 Worker subscription system — Manages per-worker callback subscriptions with proper cleanup
• 🏷️ Session management — Emits client-status-changed on connect, handles open-new-instance redirects
• 🛡️ Single-socket guard — Token-based deduplication prevents ghost connections

🔬 How We Found It — The Investigation

See the full reverse-engineering findings in PROJECT_STATE.md § 9

We extracted the app.asar, deobfuscated the minified bundles, and traced the execution paths. Along the way we discovered a fully-built SSH remote execution engine hidden inside the binary. Here's what we found:

🔎 Discovery	📝 Detail
Remote host detection	Activates when host config kind is ssh or brix
Command execution	Builds args from hostConfig.terminal_command, appends --, env vars, and command
SSH wrapper	Wraps commands in sh -lc <quoted> with -o BatchMode=yes -o ConnectTimeout=10
Git over SSH	Routes git commands through remote shell with GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0
Remote git apply	Full flow: mktemp -d → cat > patch → test -e → git apply --3way → rm -rf
Codex home resolution	Checks $CODEX_HOME, falls back to $HOME/.codex

All of this was already compiled into the app. We just wired it up. ⚡

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    YOUR BROWSER                      │
│                                                      │
│   webui-bridge.js                                    │
│   ┌──────────────────────────────────┐               │
│   │  window.electronBridge (fake)    │               │
│   │  ┌────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │               │
│   │  │ sendMessage │ │ subscribe   │ │               │
│   │  │ FromView    │ │ ToWorker    │ │               │
│   │  └──────┬─────┘ └──────┬──────┘ │               │
│   └─────────┼──────────────┼────────┘               │
│             │  WebSocket   │                         │
└─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────────┘
              │    /ws       │
┌─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────────┐
│  ELECTRON MAIN PROCESS (headless)                     │
│             │              │                          │
│   ┌────────┴──────────────┴────────┐                 │
│   │  WebUI Runtime Patch           │                 │
│   │  ┌──────────┐ ┌─────────────┐  │                 │
│   │  │ HTTP     │ │ WebSocket   │  │                 │
│   │  │ Server   │ │ Server      │  │                 │
│   │  └──────────┘ └──────┬──────┘  │                 │
│   │                      │         │                 │
│   │  webContents.send ◄──┘ (intercept & mirror)      │
│   └────────────────────────────────┘                 │
│                      │                                │
│              ┌───────┴────────┐                       │
│              │  SSH Transport │ ◄── UNLOCKED 🔓       │
│              └───────┬────────┘                       │
└──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────┘
                       │ SSH
              ┌────────┴────────┐
              │  REMOTE HOST    │
              │  ┌────────────┐ │
              │  │ ~/.codex   │ │
              │  │ git apply  │ │
              │  │ sh -lc ... │ │
              │  └────────────┘ │
              └─────────────────┘

🎯 Requirements

• 🍎 macOS with Codex Desktop installed (or custom --app path)
• 📦 Launcher dependencies are auto-installed when missing:
  • node/npx (both launchers)
  • ripgrep (launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh)
  • via Homebrew bootstrap when brew is missing
• 🌐 Internet access and curl available for automatic Homebrew/tool installation
• ⚙️ Optional: set AUTO_INSTALL_TOOLS=0 to disable auto-install behavior
• 🌐 A modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Arc, etc.) for Web UI access
• 🔑 SSH key-based auth configured for your target host — only needed for SSH mode (BatchMode=yes)
• 🖥️ Target host with ~/.codex directory (or $CODEX_HOME set) — only needed for SSH mode

🛡️ Security Notes

• SSH uses BatchMode=yes — no interactive password prompts, key-based auth only
• WebUI token auth uses timing-safe comparison to prevent timing attacks
• Security headers are set on all HTTP responses (DENY framing, no-sniff, no-referrer)
• Single-client policy prevents session hijacking from duplicate tabs
• Rate limiting protects against WebSocket flood attacks
• No StrictHostKeyChecking overrides — your existing SSH config is respected

🐛 Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
EADDRINUSE	Port already in use — try --port 6002
SSH preflight failed	Check your SSH key: ssh -o BatchMode=yes user@host 'echo ok'
Renderer guard patch anchor not found	Bundle version changed — open an issue
Missing app.asar	Point --app to your Codex.app location
Blank page in WebUI	Check console for roots error — renderer patch may need updating

🛠️ Development

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/friuns2/codex-web-ui.git
cd codex-web-ui

# 🌐 Launch the Web UI — access Codex from any browser
./launch_codex_webui_unpacked.sh --port 5999

# 🔓 Or launch with SSH mode unlocked (connects to your remote host)
./launch_codex_unpacked.sh --ssh-host [e-mail]

🤝 Contributing

Found a new Codex version that breaks the patches? Bundle patterns change between releases — PRs to update the patch anchors are always welcome! Open an issue if you hit a new bundle shape.

⭐ Star This Repo

If you think Codex should be accessible from any browser, on any device — not just the Electron window it shipped in — smash that star button. ⭐

Built by reverse-engineering Codex Desktop's Electron bundle 🔬

Because the best features are the ones they already shipped but forgot to turn on. 😏