Solves #700
## State of the World Before
Prior to this PR, when users wanted to share file contents with Codex,
they had two options:
- Manually copy and paste file contents into the chat
- Wait for the assistant to use the shell tool to view the file
The second approach required the assistant to:
1. Recognize the need to view a file
2. Execute a shell tool call
3. Wait for the tool call to complete
4. Process the file contents
This consumed extra tokens and reduced user control over which files
were shared with the model.
## State of the World After
With this PR, users can now:
- Reference files directly in their chat input using the `@path` syntax
- Have file contents automatically expanded into XML blocks before being
sent to the LLM
For example, users can type `@src/utils/config.js` in their message, and
the file contents will be included in context. Within the terminal chat
history, these file blocks will be collapsed back to `@path` format in
the UI for clean presentation.
Tag File suggestions:
<img width="857" alt="file-suggestions"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/397669dc-ad83-492d-b5f0-164fab2ff4ba"
/>
Tagging files in action:
<img width="858" alt="tagging-files"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0de9d559-7b7f-4916-aeff-87ae9b16550a"
/>
Demo video of file tagging:
[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL4LqtBnqt8)
## Implementation Details
This PR consists of 2 main components:
1. **File Tag Utilities**:
- New `file-tag-utils.ts` utility module that handles both expansion and
collapsing of file tags
- `expandFileTags()` identifies `@path` tokens and replaces them with
XML blocks containing file contents
- `collapseXmlBlocks()` reverses the process, converting XML blocks back
to `@path` format for UI display
- Tokens are only expanded if they point to valid files (directories are
ignored)
- Expansion happens just before sending input to the model
2. **Terminal Chat Integration**:
- Leveraged the existing file system completion system for tabbing to
support the `@path` syntax
- Added `updateFsSuggestions` helper to manage filesystem suggestions
- Added `replaceFileSystemSuggestion` to replace input with filesystem
suggestions
- Applied `collapseXmlBlocks` in the chat response rendering so that
tagged files are shown as simple `@path` tags
The PR also includes test coverage for both the UI and the file tag
utilities.
## Next Steps
Some ideas I'd like to implement if this feature gets merged:
- Line selection: `@path[50:80]` to grab specific sections of files
- Method selection: `@path#methodName` to grab just one function/class
- Visual improvements: highlight file tags in the UI to make them more
noticeable
This pull request includes a change to improve the error message
displayed when there is insufficient quota in the `AgentLoop` class. The
updated message provides more detailed information and a link for
managing or purchasing credits.
Error message improvement:
*
[`codex-cli/src/utils/agent/agent-loop.ts`](diffhunk://#diff-b15957eac2720c3f1f55aa32f172cdd0ac6969caf4e7be87983df747a9f97083L1140-R1140):
Updated the error message in the `AgentLoop` class to include the
specific error message (if available) and a link to manage or purchase
credits.
Fixes#751
I suspect this was done originally so that `execForSandbox()` had a
consistent signature for both the `SandboxType.NONE` and
`SandboxType.MACOS_SEATBELT` cases, but that is not really necessary and
turns out to make the upcoming Landlock support a bit more complicated
to implement, so I had Codex remove it and clean up the call sites.
Apparently the URLs for draft releases cannot be downloaded using
unauthenticated `curl`, which means the DotSlash file only works for
users who are authenticated with `gh`. According to chat, prereleases
_can_ be fetched with unauthenticated `curl`, so let's try that.
For now, keep things simple such that we never update the `version` in
the `Cargo.toml` for the workspace root on the `main` branch. Instead,
create a new branch for a release, push one commit that updates the
`version`, and then tag that branch to kick off a release.
To test, I ran this script and created this release job:
https://github.com/openai/codex/actions/runs/14762580641
The generated DotSlash file has URLs that refer to
`https://github.com/openai/codex/releases/`, so let's set
`prerelease:false` (but keep `draft:true` for now) so those URLs should
work.
Also updated `version` in Cargo workspace so I will kick off a build
once this lands.
I am working to simplify the build process. As a first step, update
`session.ts` so it reads the `version` from `package.json` at runtime so
we no longer have to modify it during the build process. I want to get
to a place where the build looks like:
```
cd codex-cli
pnpm i
pnpm build
RELEASE_DIR=$(mktemp -d)
cp -r bin "$RELEASE_DIR/bin"
cp -r dist "$RELEASE_DIR/dist"
cp -r src "$RELEASE_DIR/src" # important if we want sourcemaps to continue to work
cp ../README.md "$RELEASE_DIR"
VERSION=$(printf '0.1.%d' $(date +%y%m%d%H%M))
jq --arg version "$VERSION" '.version = $version' package.json > "$RELEASE_DIR/package.json"
```
Then the contents of `$RELEASE_DIR` should be good to `npm publish`, no?
@oai-ragona and I discussed it, and we feel the REPL crate has served
its purpose, so we're going to delete the code and future archaeologists
can find it in Git history.
