core-agent-ide/docs
Michael Bolin d9dbf48828
fix: separate codex mcp into codex mcp-server and codex app-server (#4471)
This is a very large PR with some non-backwards-compatible changes.

Historically, `codex mcp` (or `codex mcp serve`) started a JSON-RPC-ish
server that had two overlapping responsibilities:

- Running an MCP server, providing some basic tool calls.
- Running the app server used to power experiences such as the VS Code
extension.

This PR aims to separate these into distinct concepts:

- `codex mcp-server` for the MCP server
- `codex app-server` for the "application server"

Note `codex mcp` still exists because it already has its own subcommands
for MCP management (`list`, `add`, etc.)

The MCP logic continues to live in `codex-rs/mcp-server` whereas the
refactored app server logic is in the new `codex-rs/app-server` folder.
Note that most of the existing integration tests in
`codex-rs/mcp-server/tests/suite` were actually for the app server, so
all the tests have been moved with the exception of
`codex-rs/mcp-server/tests/suite/mod.rs`.

Because this is already a large diff, I tried not to change more than I
had to, so `codex-rs/app-server/tests/common/mcp_process.rs` still uses
the name `McpProcess` for now, but I will do some mechanical renamings
to things like `AppServer` in subsequent PRs.

While `mcp-server` and `app-server` share some overlapping functionality
(like reading streams of JSONL and dispatching based on message types)
and some differences (completely different message types), I ended up
doing a bit of copypasta between the two crates, as both have somewhat
similar `message_processor.rs` and `outgoing_message.rs` files for now,
though I expect them to diverge more in the near future.

One material change is that of the initialize handshake for `codex
app-server`, as we no longer use the MCP types for that handshake.
Instead, we update `codex-rs/protocol/src/mcp_protocol.rs` to add an
`Initialize` variant to `ClientRequest`, which takes the `ClientInfo`
object we need to update the `USER_AGENT_SUFFIX` in
`codex-rs/app-server/src/message_processor.rs`.

One other material change is in
`codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs` where I eliminated
a use of the `send_event_as_notification()` method I am generally trying
to deprecate (because it blindly maps an `EventMsg` into a
`JSONNotification`) in favor of `send_server_notification()`, which
takes a `ServerNotification`, as that is intended to be a custom enum of
all notification types supported by the app server. So to make this
update, I had to introduce a new variant of `ServerNotification`,
`SessionConfigured`, which is a non-backwards compatible change with the
old `codex mcp`, and clients will have to be updated after the next
release that contains this PR. Note that
`codex-rs/app-server/tests/suite/list_resume.rs` also had to be update
to reflect this change.

I introduced `codex-rs/utils/json-to-toml/src/lib.rs` as a small utility
crate to avoid some of the copying between `mcp-server` and
`app-server`.
2025-09-30 07:06:18 +00:00
..
advanced.md fix: separate codex mcp into codex mcp-server and codex app-server (#4471) 2025-09-30 07:06:18 +00:00
authentication.md Simplify auth flow and reconcile differences between ChatGPT and API Key auth (#3189) 2025-09-11 09:16:34 -07:00
CLA.md Set up CLA process and remove DCO (#129) 2025-04-16 15:24:31 -07:00
config.md Update MCP docs to reference experimental RMCP client (#4422) 2025-09-30 02:44:16 -04:00
contributing.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
experimental.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
faq.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
getting-started.md enable-resume (#3537) 2025-09-14 19:33:19 -04:00
install.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
license.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
open-source-fund.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
platform-sandboxing.md README / docs refactor (#2724) 2025-08-27 10:30:39 -07:00
prompts.md Custom prompt args (numeric) (#4470) 2025-09-29 16:14:37 -07:00
release_management.md fix: make GitHub Action publish to npm using trusted publishing (#3431) 2025-09-16 20:33:59 -07:00
sandbox.md fix typo in sandbox doc (#4256) 2025-09-25 16:03:44 -07:00
zdr.md Never store requests (#3212) 2025-09-05 10:41:47 -07:00