Using Wing with Codex

Wing Pro 12 integrates Codex, OpenAI's AI coding agent with the IDE. You can run Codex in Wing's AI Agent tool, use the Tasks tool for queueing, tracking, and reviewing agent work, ask the agent to fix failed tests, debugger exceptions, or code warnings, or use the agent to better understand code and run code reviews.

Wing uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to give the agent access to the IDE's analysis, debugger, testing, and version control features, allowing it to work more efficiently on most complex coding problems.

If you do not already have Wing installed, download it now.

This How-To covers what Codex itself needs and how to set it up in Wing. The workflow that follows is described in Using Wing with an AI Agent.

Codex is recommended and safe to use, and runs the Tasks Manager well. See the table in AI Agent Safety, which compares the agents' safety and suitability for autonomous development.

Prerequisites

Codex is a separate download, installed with:

npm install -g @openai/codex

Wing runs the codex command's own terminal interface inside the AI Agent tool, which needs nothing more.

This needs a recent Node.js, which provides npm. Some Linux distributions ship an older version, in which case you can install a current one from nodejs.org or with nvm. If npm install -g fails with a permission error, first run npm config set prefix ~/.local so it installs into your home directory, with commands in ~/.local/bin.

Once Codex has been installed, quit Wing and start it again so it picks up your updated PATH.

Quick Setup

To allow Wing to use Codex in your project, use Set Up for AI Agent > Codex in the Project menu. This opens a dialog asking for the top-level directory where you want the agent to run. This defaults to the Wing project directory, but can be changed. After you submit this dialog, Wing:

authorizes use of Codex in this project
writes the development guides that tell the agent about this project's conventions, testing regimen, and commit policy
points AGENTS.md at those guides (creating it if it does not already exist)
opens the Tasks and AI Agent tools side by side

You can do the same as part of the process of creating a new Wing project, with the Set Up for AI Agent option in the New Project dialog.

Note that you can also set up other agents in your Wing project, by running the same setup process for each.

For the files Wing writes into that directory, and which of them it keeps out of version control, see Setting Up an AI Agent.

Authentication

Codex requires a ChatGPT plan or an OpenAI API key, and will not start a session until one of them is in place.

To use a ChatGPT plan, start a Codex session in the AI Agent tool. Codex asks you to sign in before it starts, and keeps the result itself. You can also run codex login outside Wing.

To use an API key instead, set OPENAI_API_KEY in the Environment in Project Properties.

Advanced: ACP

Wing can also run Codex over the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), which Wing manages in its own AI agent conversation UI. This version is listed as Codex ACP only when the Show ACP Versions of Agents preference on the AI page under Projects in Preferences is enabled, or while you hold Shift with an agent menu open. It is not recommended, since it never asks before changing files or running commands in the project. It needs Codex's adapter as well:

npm install -g @agentclientprotocol/codex-acp

To give it an API key, choose Configure Agents... from the AI Agent tool's Options menu, add a configuration for Codex, select OpenAI API key, and point Wing at your key. A configuration can be shared with your other projects or kept with this one, so different projects can use different keys.

Next Steps

Once Codex is set up, you should be able to try it out in the AI Agent tool, manage tasks from the Tasks tool, and make use of Wing's other agentic development features.

For more information, see Using Wing with an AI Agent.