Support VSCode MCP Management and mcp.json Integration in Codex Extension

Resolved 💬 8 comments Opened Aug 29, 2025 by BenyominMandel Closed Feb 1, 2026

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What feature would you like to see?

I would like the Codex VSCode extension to support the same MCP (Model Communication Protocol) management system that is already used by GitHub Copilot in VSCode.

VSCode itself has built-in MCP management, using configuration files like mcp.json. GitHub Copilot leverages this and allows users to configure, select, and use multiple MCPs easily. Codex should do the same, so that:

The mcp.json config and VSCode's MCP management UI are recognized by Codex, just as they are by Copilot.
All MCPs configured for Copilot in VSCode should be available and manageable in Codex without needing to set them up again.
MCP/tool/plugin management is unified and interoperable between Copilot and Codex, since it's a VSCode feature and not just a Copilot one.

This would make setup and usage seamless for users of both Codex and Copilot, and encourage configuration reuse and best practices across both extensions.

Are you interested in implementing this feature?

_No response_

Additional information

_No response_

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8 Comments

nicetomytyuk · 10 months ago

Were you able to make Codex on VS Code use the MCP?

Etsija · 8 months ago

No response in 2 months, so this is a no-go? Bummer, as this would be so good!

bhack · 6 months ago

This has reached 53 upvotes. Any news?

bhack · 6 months ago

E.g. see https://github.com/anomalyco/opencode/pull/7122

etraut-openai contributor · 5 months ago

We've recently improved the configuration mechanism for MCP servers inside of Codex. There's now a GUI-based settings panel. We've also recently added the ability to configure MCP servers on a per-project basis using project-local .codex/config.toml files.

All Codex local surfaces (the Codex CLI, VS Code extension, JetBrains extension, etc.) use the same configuration mechanism.

We don't plan to add support for Github copilot's configuration mechanism. That's a different tool chain, and it has its own configuration mechanism.

Cretezy · 4 months ago

It seems like many tools support loading from .mcp.json, is that planned?

pdrosatlassian · 1 month ago

Not only copilot using mcp.json convention. Cursor, claude code, rovodev all support mcp.json format

biehlermi · 2 days ago

@etraut-openai Could you take another look at this suggestion? It would make sense to me to offer support for the mcp.json files as well.