A way to view full output of background terminals

Open 💬 2 comments Opened Apr 6, 2026 by MikukuOvO

What variant of Codex are you using?

CLI

What feature would you like to see?

What issue are you seeing?

I’m using Codex CLI to run long-running ML jobs (e.g., training / rollout), and the current /ps command only shows a summarized preview (last few lines) of background terminals.

There is currently no clear way to view the full live output of a running background task.

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What is the expected behavior?

There should be a way to:

  • Attach to a background terminal (similar to tmux attach)
  • Or expand /ps into a full log view
  • Or stream full stdout of a selected job

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Why is this important?

For long-running workloads, logs are critical for:

  • debugging
  • monitoring progress
  • detecting failures early

The current summarized view is not sufficient for these use cases.

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Suggested solutions

  • Add /attach <job_id> to open full terminal view
  • Add /logs <job_id> to stream full output
  • Or allow toggling between "preview" and "full" mode in /ps

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Additional context

This feels like a limitation compared to tools like tmux/screen, where full session output is accessible.

Better observability for background tasks would significantly improve the developer experience when using Codex CLI.

Additional information

_No response_

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