mcdx — switch between Codex auth profiles

mcdx is a small CLI for switching between saved OpenAI Codex login credentials, so you can use personal and work accounts on the same machine.

It manages only:

~/.codex/auth.json

It does not copy config.toml, sessions, history, SQLite state, plugins, skills, or temporary runtime files. Runtime state and config.toml stay owned by Codex itself — after a switch, mcdx asks Codex to restart its app-server daemon so the new credentials are actually picked up.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• The codex CLI on your PATH (used by mcdx add, and to reload the app-server daemon after add/switch)

Install

# Recommended: pipx (isolated environment, mcdx lands on your PATH)
pipx install mcdx

# Or plain pip
pip install --user mcdx

Published on PyPI.

Install from a clone

git clone https://github.com/zackaryjing/multi-account-codex
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
ln -sf "$PWD/multi-account-codex/mcdx.py" ~/.local/bin/mcdx
chmod +x multi-account-codex/mcdx.py

Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH.

Usage

mcdx save-current main   # save your current login as a profile
mcdx add alt             # log in with Codex device auth, saved as a profile
mcdx list                # list saved profiles (* marks the active one)
mcdx current             # show the active profile
mcdx switch main         # switch the active Codex auth
mcdx use main            # alias for switch
mcdx update main         # log in again to refresh an expired profile
mcdx remove old-name     # delete a profile
mcdx rename a b          # rename a profile
mcdx proxy set http://127.0.0.1:10808   # proxy for codex logins and daemon restarts
mcdx daemon restart      # restart the Codex app-server daemon (picks up the proxy)
mcdx doctor              # check paths, Codex binary, proxy and daemon status

mcdx add, mcdx update, and mcdx switch accept:

Where things live

Profiles are stored under:

~/.local/share/mcdx/profiles/<name>/

Each profile contains an auth.json copy and metadata.json. Credentials are not encrypted — the profiles directory is created with 0700 permissions.

Environment overrides:

Proxy

On machines that can only reach chatgpt.com through a local proxy (e.g. v2rayN/Clash behind mirrored WSL networking), both codex login and the long-lived app-server daemon need the proxy in their environment. Configure it once per machine:

mcdx proxy set http://127.0.0.1:10808

mcdx then injects http_proxy/https_proxy/all_proxy into every codex subprocess it spawns:

• mcdx add / mcdx update device-auth logins
• app-server daemon restarts (after add/switch/update, and mcdx daemon restart)

Since daemons inherit their environment at spawn time, mcdx daemon restart is also the recovery command when a daemon was started elsewhere without the proxy and codex hangs on network errors.

mcdx cannot affect codex processes you start yourself — launch those with the proxy already in your shell environment (or through a wrapper that exports it). mcdx proxy show displays the active value, mcdx proxy clear removes it, and MCDX_PROXY overrides the stored config for one invocation.

Behavior

• mcdx add <name> temporarily moves the active auth aside, runs codex login --device-auth, saves the resulting auth.json, and leaves the new profile active.
• mcdx update <name> re-runs that login flow for an existing profile and replaces its credentials in place, so an expired profile can be refreshed without remove + add. On failure the profile and the active auth are left untouched.
• mcdx switch <name> saves the current auth as _last before switching.
• Duplicate credentials are detected by account_id and auth.json SHA-256.
• An interrupted add/update is rolled back immediately for catchable exits (Ctrl+C, SIGTERM/SIGHUP from a closing terminal) and on the next mcdx run for a hard kill, via a journal under the data directory.
• Codex keeps a long-lived app-server daemon that reads auth.json once at startup, and sessions talk to that daemon rather than to the file. After add/switch, mcdx therefore runs codex app-server daemon restart; without it the daemon keeps serving the previous account no matter what auth.json says. mcdx asks first (default yes) when it can, and never restarts a daemon that is not running. Restarting interrupts any codex sessions live on that daemon, so scripts should pass -y to accept that, or --no-daemon-restart and reload later.

Development

python3 tests.py    # run the test suite

License

MIT