Codex Chat — Obsidian Plugin

Chat with OpenAI Codex directly inside Obsidian. Uses the local Codex CLI — no API keys needed, just sign in with your ChatGPT account.

Features

• Chat sidebar — A persistent right-panel chat view with streaming Markdown responses, status indicators, and cancel support.
• Vault context injection — Automatically includes the current note (and optionally linked notes) as context in every prompt. Configurable via settings.
• Conversation memory — Prior messages are prepended to the prompt so Codex has context of your full conversation, not just the last message.
• Chat history persistence — Messages survive sidebar close and Obsidian reloads. Start a new conversation with the + button.
• Send selection to Codex — Editor command that grabs your selection (or the full note) and sends it to the chat for analysis.
• Insert/replace response — Paste the last Codex response at your cursor, or replace selected text with it.
• Auth status indicator — Green/red dot in the sidebar header shows whether you're signed in. Click to sign in.
• Copy button — Hover over any assistant response to copy it to the clipboard.
• Configurable — Binary path, sandbox mode (read-only / workspace-write / full-access), context mode, max context length, model override, and reasoning effort.

Prerequisites

1. Codex CLI installed globally:

   npm install -g @openai/codex
   

2. A ChatGPT account. No separate API key is needed.
3. Obsidian 1.0.0 or later (desktop only — the plugin uses Node.js child processes).

Installation

Manual install

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create a folder in your vault: <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/codex-chat/
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. Reload Obsidian and enable Codex Chat in Settings → Community plugins.

From source

git clone https://github.com/infernosalex/codex_in_obsidian.git
cd codex_in_obsidian
npm install
npm run build

Then copy main.js, manifest.json, styles.css to your vault's plugin folder.

Usage

Sign in

1. Open the command palette and run Codex Chat: Sign in to codex, or click the red dot in the chat sidebar header.
2. A modal will display a URL and device code. Open the URL in your browser and enter the code to authenticate.

Chat

• Click the 💬 ribbon icon or use the Codex Chat: Open chat command to open the sidebar.
• Type a question and press Ctrl+Enter (or click Send).
• Responses stream in real time with status indicators (Thinking, Reasoning, Running command...).
• Click the Cancel button to abort a response.
• Hover over any assistant message and click the 📋 icon to copy.
• Click the + button in the header to start a new conversation.

Editor commands

Command	Description
Open chat	Open or focus the Codex Chat sidebar
Send selection to codex	Send selected text (or full note) to the chat
Insert last codex response at cursor	Insert response at cursor, or replace selected text
Sign in to codex	Trigger the device-code auth flow

Configuration

All settings are in Settings → Codex Chat:

Setting	Default	Description
Binary path	codex	Path to the Codex CLI binary. Supports auto-detection from your shell's PATH.
Sandbox mode	Read-only	Controls Codex's file system access: read-only, workspace-write, full-access
Context mode	Current note	What vault context to include: none, current-note, current-and-linked
Max context length	10,000 chars	Maximum characters of vault content to include in prompts
Model override	(default)	Optionally specify a model name (e.g., o3-mini)
Reasoning effort	Medium	Low / Medium / High reasoning effort

Development

npm install          # Install dependencies
npm run dev          # Build in watch mode
npm run build        # Production build (with type checking)
npm run lint         # Run ESLint

Roadmap

• @file references — Type @filename in chat to include any vault file as context
• Multi-session tabs — Multiple named conversations with a session switcher
• Export chat to note — Save conversations as Markdown notes
• Prompt templates — Reusable templates with {{selection}}, {{note}}, {{title}} variables
• Slash commands — /clear, /new, /export, /model for quick actions

License

MIT