Codex App: In app browser to support sign in and authentication flows
What variant of Codex are you using?
App
What feature would you like to see?
I’d like to ask if authentication support in the Codex in-app browser is planned.
The current docs say:
"The in-app browser does not support authentication flows, signed-in pages, your regular browser profile, cookies, extensions, or existing tabs. Use it for pages Codex can open without logging in."
Source: https://developers.openai.com/codex/app/browser
I hit this while testing a local app at localhost:5173/login. The app uses Google sign-in. It works in Brave, but not in the Codex in-app browser.
From what I can tell, Google sign-in tries to open a new tab. In the Codex browser, that popup does not open. Google logs:
[GSI_LOGGER]: Failed to open popup window ... Maybe blocked by the browser?I also tested a simple window.open(...), and it did not open a new tab in the Codex browser.
It would be helpful to know if supporting auth flows, popup/new-tab login flows, or some external-browser handoff is on the roadmap. A lot of local apps need login before the useful pages can be tested.
For now I understand the workaround is to use a normal browser for login-dependent pages, as the docs say.
5 Comments
I also tried using the Playwright-based skills provided in the app.
Both are useful for local UI testing, but I have not been able to get a smooth workflow for testing my local app with a persisted logged-in session.
This is currently the only case where I have to fall back to Claude Code’s Chrome tool, because it can use a browser session that stays logged in. I would rather keep this workflow inside Codex if possible.
Is there any official or community-recommended tool, MCP server, plugin, or skill for testing local development apps with persisted logged-in sessions?
I had a similar problem trying to get Codex in-app browser to log into a site that used a Google sign-in. It said it couldn't do it because "it’s embedded in a cross-origin iframe, and the in-app browser can’t interact with that kind of button right now."
Is this on the roadmap? It's a much needed feature to be logged into sites during use of Browser and this prevents a large majority of that.
I haven't test this yet, but if I can't login to websites then browser becomes a very basic tool. I fully support full authentication.
https://x.com/OpenAIDevs/status/2052481136971125158
Codex gods heard us, we can close it now