codex 0.144.0 homebrew cask is missing `codex-code-mode-host` every command is failing with "failed to spawn code-mode host"
Open 💬 9 comments Opened Jul 9, 2026 by Ronit-Mathur
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What version of Codex CLI is running?
0.144.0
What subscription do you have?
Enterprise
Which model were you using?
gpt-5.6-Sol
What platform is your computer?
_No response_
What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?
_No response_
Codex doctor report
What issue are you seeing?
Summary
Fresh brew install --cask codex (0.144.0) is totally unusable. Every command fails before running:
failed to spawn code-mode host /opt/homebrew/bin/codex-code-mode-host: No such file or directory (os error 2)
Even ls fails, because code-mode routes all exec through this sidecar.
Cause
0.144.0 needs a codex-code-mode-host sidecar, but the cask installs only the codex binary. Casks/c/codex.rb declares just:
binary "codex-#{arch}-#{os}", target: "codex"
brew info --cask codex confirms: no codex-code-mode-host in the artifacts.
Cask-only bug — other channels ship the sidecar:
- npm
@openai/codex@0.144.0-darwin-arm64hasvendor/aarch64-apple-darwin/bin/codex-code-mode-host - ChatGPT desktop app bundles it in
Contents/Resources/
Environment
- codex-cli 0.144.0 (Homebrew cask), macOS, Apple Silicon (arm64)
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Fresh installation of codex newest version with homebrew
What is the expected behavior?
_No response_
Additional information
_No response_
9 Comments
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
Powered by Codex Action
upgraded. have exactly the same issue. so effectively codex CLI is unusable.
same problem here. only possible solution now is
```brew uninstall --cask codex
npm install -g @openai/codex@0.144.0
hash -r
which codex
codex --version
command -v codex-code-mode-host```
It seems this only affects gpt-5.6 models. 5.5 is working fine.
Same here. From codex itself:
That confirms a Codex 1.44 packaging/launcher regression, not an Xcode MCP problem. MCP connects successfully, but Codex fails before invoking it because the code-mode helper is missing at:
/opt/homebrew/bin/codex-code-mode-host
codex doctor apparently does not validate that helper. The useful bug report is: 1.44, macOS/Apple Silicon, doctor passes, Xcode MCP connects, every tool call fails spawning that missing executable.
Downgrading to the prior Codex version is the immediate workaround.
I fixed this issue with this.
`
set -euo pipefail
version="0.144.0"
tmp="$(mktemp -d)"
trap 'rm -rf "$tmp"' EXIT
url="$(
curl -fsSL "https://api.github.com/repos/openai/codex/releases?per_page=20" |
python3 -c '
import json, sys
version = "0.144.0"
releases = json.load(sys.stdin)
release = next(
(r for r in releases if r["tag_name"].endswith(version)),
None,
)
if release is None:
raise SystemExit("Release not found")
assets = [
a for a in release["assets"]
if "codex-code-mode-host" in a["name"]
and "aarch64-apple-darwin" in a["name"]
and not a["name"].endswith((".sha256", ".sig"))
]
if not assets:
raise SystemExit("Host asset not found")
assets.sort(key=lambda a: (
not a["name"].endswith(".tar.gz"),
a["name"],
))
print(assets[0]["browser_download_url"])
'
)"
asset="$tmp/${url##*/}"
mkdir "$tmp/unpacked"
curl -fL "$url" -o "$asset"
case "$asset" in
.tar.gz|.tgz|.tar.zst|.tar.xz)
tar -xf "$asset" -C "$tmp/unpacked"
;;
*.zip)
ditto -x -k "$asset" "$tmp/unpacked"
;;
*)
cp "$asset" "$tmp/unpacked/codex-code-mode-host-aarch64-apple-darwin"
;;
esac
host="$(find "$tmp/unpacked" -type f -name 'codex-code-mode-host*' | head -n 1)"
test -n "$host"
file "$host" | grep -Eq 'Mach-O.*(arm64|universal)'
install -m 0755 "$host" /opt/homebrew/bin/codex-code-mode-host
ls -la /opt/homebrew/bin/codex-code-mode-host
`
Same problem here
same as 0.144.0 gpt-5.6-Sol for /opt/homebrew/bin/codex-code-mode-host: No such file or directory
lol so Codex just wasted a full 5 hour window because of this bug. What a waste of tokens.
<img width="1704" height="1114" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/985c2c7a-51f8-4f42-879d-055a22397f20" />
Looking forward to a fix! Brew reinstall etc didn't work. Codex can't fix itself either, as it seems.