1
Open Codex on host
Launch the Codex desktop app on your Mac or Windows machine. Select "Set up Codex mobile" in the sidebar.
2
Scan QR code
Open the ChatGPT mobile app on your phone and scan the QR code shown by the Codex app.
3
Confirm account
Verify you are signed in with the same ChatGPT account on both devices. Your host machine appears in the mobile app.
4
Work from anywhere
Start tasks, approve commands, review diffs and screenshots, and steer active work from your phone through a secure relay.
How the secure relay works
Codex uses a secure relay layer that keeps trusted machines reachable across authorized ChatGPT devices without exposing them directly to the public internet. Files, credentials, plugins, Computer Use, browser setup, and local tools all stay on the host machine. Only prompts, approvals, follow-up messages, and output streams flow between your phone and the host. This is fundamentally different from simply opening a web dashboard. Your phone is sending instructions to the actual Codex agent running on your host machine with full access to your local environment.
Remote SSH chain
Remote SSH is generally available as of May 2026. Your Codex App can connect to SSH hosts and managed devboxes. The app auto-discovers hosts from ~/.ssh/config. Once connected, Codex works in the remote filesystem and shell. Your phone connects through the Codex App host to reach the SSH machine, creating a three-tier chain: phone to Codex App to remote devbox. Enterprise teams get approved dependencies, credentials, and security policies on the remote host.