fast_mode not active when launching cli by default

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Mar 8, 2026 by Jey123456 Closed Mar 9, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex CLI is running?

service_tier

What subscription do you have?

pro

Which model were you using?

gpt-5.4

What platform is your computer?

windows

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

powershell

What issue are you seeing?

fast_mode is not on by default contrary to the release notes claim

"Fast mode is now enabled by default, and the TUI header shows whether the session is running in Fast or Standard mode. (https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/13450, https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/13446)"

for it to actually launch in fast mode, it also need service_tier=fast

without that, the cli will not display the "fast" purple message next to the reasoning tier in the model description at the top on launch

codex -c "service_tier=fast" does actually start in fast mode tho as far as i could test

What steps can reproduce the bug?

launch codex on a fresh session without using /fast once inside. then it will start without fast mode enabled.

i noticed that if you close codex while it is in fast mode, launching it back in the same terminal will maintain the fast mode status but you must do the /fast command once (which is a problem for non interactive cli)

as mentioned, the service_tier=fast does address this.

What is the expected behavior?

launching with gpt 5.4 should be in fast mode by default if we go with the release note. (personally i think we should have a dedicated --fast_mode parameter instead.

Additional information

_No response_

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3 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 5 months ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

  • #13610

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Jey123456 · 5 months ago
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate. * /fast mode doesn't work #13610 _Powered by Codex Action_

not a duplicate of that one. that issue is for interactive, and was likely fixed already considering /fast worked for me.

this issue is with non interactive cli, for which the only way to turn fast_mode on is to set both the features.fast_mode to true (which 0.111 does) and service_tier=fast

pash-openai contributor · 5 months ago

Quick clarification: this was not intended to enable Fast Mode by default.

That PR only enabled the experimental flag so the client could expose Fast Mode. It did not flip the actual feature toggle or set service_tier=fast on startup.

So this behavior is expected. The release note was misleading and should be corrected.