codex CLI fails in CI environments (GitHub Actions) due to Ink raw mode error, even with --quiet, CODEX_QUIET_MODE=1, and --no-terminal

A workaround is to specify a container, and allocate a tty.

container:
 image: node:24
 options: --tty

⚠️ Same underlying issue in #1080, #1156, and #1208 (also reproducible in AWS Lambda)

All three reports crash with the identical Ink error:

Error: Raw mode is not supported on the current process.stdin …

The Codex CLI calls stdin.setRawMode(true) via Ink’s useInput.
If the process has no real TTY (CI runners, Jupyter/Colab, Lambda, Docker without -t) Ink throws and Codex exits before any flags are parsed.

➡️ There is no reliable headless work-around yet

• Setting CI=true and passing --yes --allow-outside-git --approval-mode full-auto is not sufficient—Ink still initialises useInput and the CLI crashes.
• Same result in Lambda, GitHub Actions, Azure Functions, and Colab notebooks.

🛠 Proposed fix for the CLI

1. Provide an official --ci / --headless flag (or honour CI=true) that completely disables Ink’s useInput before raw-mode is attempted.
2. Make that flag automatically imply --yes and --allow-outside-git.
3. Document usage for CI/CD environments (Actions, GitLab, Lambda, etc.).

Until then the only viable option is:

Run Codex CLI inside an environment that has a TTY (e.g. self-hosted runner with docker run -it …).

I had the same problem, so I checked the problem, and it turned out that OPENAI_API_KEY was not working properly as an environment variable.

If you look at the get-api-key.tsx file, it looks like this:

export async function getApiKey(
  issuer: string,
  clientId: string,
  forceLogin: boolean = false,
): Promise<string> {
  if (!forceLogin && process.env["OPENAI_API_KEY"]) {
    return process.env["OPENAI_API_KEY"]!;
  }
  const choice = await promptUserForChoice(); // render
  // ... 
}

If don't read the value from the environment variable, it will be rendered and an error will occur in the GitHub Actions environment. Please check if it is properly caught by doing the following in CI.

      - name: Run codex
        env:
          OPENAI_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.OPENAI_API_KEY }}
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          if [ -z "$OPENAI_API_KEY" ]; then
            echo "❌ OPENAI_API_KEY is not set"
          else
            echo "✅ OPENAI_API_KEY is set"
          fi

          if [ -z "$GITHUB_TOKEN" ]; then
            echo "❌ GITHUB_TOKEN is not set"
          else
            echo "✅ GITHUB_TOKEN is set"
          fi
// ...

You can test it like this.

FROM node:22-alpine
WORKDIR /app
ENV OPENAI_API_KEY=
RUN npm install -g @openai/codex
CMD ["codex", "-a", "full-auto", "-q", "hello world"]

$ docker build -f Dockerfile.test -t codex-ci-test . && docker run --rm codex-ci-test

ERROR Raw mode is not supported on the current process.stdin, which Ink uses
       as input stream by default.
       Read about how to prevent this error on
       https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink/#israwmodesupported

An error occurs because OPENAI_API_KEY is empty. However, if you enter a correct value in OPENAI_API_KEY and run the same command again, it will be printed correctly.

Is there any workaround for this raw mode error?

Is there any workaround for this raw mode error?

script -qfc "your-shell-command" /dev/null

Hey @charlie87041, I noticed there's now a section in the README.md about Non-interactive / CI mode. It suggests using codex exec --full-auto "prompt goes here". Can you retry using this?

I also noticed your GitHub Actions yml is missing the checkout step. (N.B. You _can_ use Codex CLI without having a checked-out repo if you want, but you'd also need the --skip-git-repo-check flag).

The yml I used for testing was,

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  codex-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      OPENAI_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.OPENAI_API_KEY }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Make sure key is set
        run: |
          if [ -z "$OPENAI_API_KEY" ]; then
            echo "❌ OPENAI_API_KEY is not set"
            exit 1
          else
            echo "✅ OPENAI_API_KEY is set"
          fi
      - name: Use Node.js 22
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '22'
      - name: Install and use Codex CLI
        run: |
          npm install -g @openai/codex
          codex --version
          codex exec --full-auto "Put a description of this repo's purpose into PURPOSE.md"
          cat PURPOSE.md

You can see the GitHub Actions run here: https://github.com/jdoxey/codex-bug-test/actions/runs/17008004859/job/48220199682

The original issue reported here is no longer relevant because the CLI has since been rewritten in Rust and no longer uses ink.