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Public story · 2026-08-07 · high
Scripting Codex without it meant piping yes into a prompt built for a human, skipping the approval check entirely.
Why now: As of August 7, running Codex unattended without --approve-for-me still meant piping yes and not admitting it.
Codex 0.147.0 replaces piping yes at a prompt with --approve-for-me, an auto-reviewed approval flag for unattended runs, per the changelog.
Anyone scripting Codex in CI or cron no longer has to fake consent by piping yes into a prompt built for humans. That workaround skipped every check the approval step exists for.
The new flag keeps some form of review in the loop instead of turning it off outright.
The same release tightened plugin isolation and network access enforcement, making both harder to break out of or slip past. It also raised the trust bar for local projects Codex hasn't seen before. None of those are optional the way approval gating is, and they apply whether or not you touch --approve-for-me.
--approve-for-me isn't the old model of a human clicking approve on every step, and it isn't approvals switched off. It's a middle setting. The changelog doesn't say what "automatically reviewed" actually checks, or what makes a review pass versus fail.
OpenAI didn't build this flag speculatively. Piping yes into Codex was already how people ran it in production, unsupported and never admitted. --approve-for-me is OpenAI catching up to what its own users were already doing.
Watch whether OpenAI documents what "automatically reviewed" evaluates. That detail decides whether this is a real safety boundary or a compliance-shaped wrapper around the same yes-pipe everyone was already running.
Each link below shares sources, entities, or timing with this story.
Cursor benchmarked against Codex / Shared entity: Codex / Shared topic / Earlier coverage
Linked by a graph relationship (Cursor benchmarked against Codex); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (access, approval, bypass, codex).
VS Code supports Codex / Shared entity: Codex / Shared topic / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (VS Code supports Codex); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (between, codex).
Codex competes with Claude Code / Shared entity: Codex / Shared topic / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Codex competes with Claude Code); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (access, codex).
Linked by a graph relationship (Codex competes with Claude Code); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (aimed, codex).
Linked by a graph relationship (Codex competes with Claude Code); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (aimed, codex).
OpenAI released Codex / Shared entity: Codex / Shared topic / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenAI released Codex); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (codex, hardened).
Codex uses ChatGPT / Shared entity: Codex / Same source
Linked by a graph relationship (Codex uses ChatGPT); both cover Codex; cite the same source (flag).
OpenAI released Codex / Shared entity: Codex / Shared topic / Earlier coverage
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenAI released Codex); both cover Codex; overlapping topics (approval, codex, prompt).