OpenAI / github.com/openai/codex Codex CLI v0.133.0: Goals Mode Is Now On by Default, Vim Editing Ships in the TUI
OpenAI shipped Codex CLI v0.133.0 on May 21, enabling Goals mode by default for all users. The release also adds Vim modal editing to the terminal UI, a new codex doctor diagnostics command, and a reworked permission profiles system.
OpenAI shipped Codex CLI v0.133.0 on May 21 with one headline change: Goals mode is now enabled by default for all users. The feature launched as an experimental opt-in in v0.128.0 earlier this month. Starting with 0.133, every new Codex session starts with Goals active.
Goals, Now Default
Goals let you define an objective and success criteria, then let Codex keep working toward them across multiple turns until it judges the task complete, runs out of budget, or you pause it. The idea is a longer-horizon loop instead of back-and-forth prompting.
In 0.133, Goals got dedicated storage and active-turn progress tracking. The extension API is also wired to the goal store, so plugins can now read and write goal state. For developers who had already turned Goals on manually, nothing changes. For everyone else, it’s now the starting position.
Vim Mode in the TUI
The terminal UI now supports modal Vim editing in the composer. You can enable it with /vim inside a session, set it as your default via config, and Vim-specific keymap contexts are respected throughout. It joins Emacs-style keybindings as a first-class option for developers who don’t want to leave their muscle memory at the door when they context-switch to Codex.
codex doctor
A new codex doctor command runs support-ready diagnostics across runtime, auth, terminal, network, config, and local state. On Windows, it specifically detects npm-managed installs correctly and checks for missing VC++ runtime dependencies — both common sources of setup problems. The intent is to make “why isn’t this working” questions easier to diagnose without a support thread.
Permission Profiles and Plugin Discovery
Permission profiles received a set of infrastructure improvements: list APIs, inheritance between profiles, managed requirements.toml support, runtime refresh, and tighter Windows sandbox integration. Plugin discovery got marketplace-aware output, installed version tracking, visible marketplace roots, and remote collection support.
Both are plumbing changes that mainly matter if you’re building tooling on top of Codex or managing it for a team.
Remote Control
codex remote-control now runs as a foreground process with explicit readiness reporting and daemon-style start/stop commands. Previous versions had startup/shutdown race conditions that made remote sessions unreliable on slower machines. The release notes list fixing app-server startup and shutdown races as a resolved issue.
Sources: Release v0.133.0 — OpenAI on GitHub, May 21, 2026; Codex CLI changelog — OpenAI Developers