Powershell does not respect usage of OpenAI key
Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Oct 16, 2025 by thePostFuturist Closed Nov 15, 2025
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What version of Codex is running?
v0.46.0
What subscription do you have?
API
Which model were you using?
_No response_
What platform is your computer?
Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0 x64
What issue are you seeing?
starting with codex --config preferred_auth_method=apikey gets auth.json completely wiped and replaces "OPENAI_API_KEY": null and asks to auth with my API account. Basically only sub is supported.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
start from scratch per the instructions above.
What is the expected behavior?
_No response_
Additional information
_No response_
2 Comments
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
Powered by Codex Action
The behavior you're seeing is by design. Older versions of the CLI implicitly logged in using the API key. This created a bunch of problems given that authentication is shared between the CLI and the IDE extension. We've now simplified it (removing
preferred_auth_methodin the process). You now need to explicitly log in with either an API key or with ChatGPT. You can usecodex login --api-keyto log in with an API key.