Originally wrote this post very plainly. I have expanded it using GPT 5.2 Pro since it got decent reception but felt like I didn't give enough detail/context.

imagine you can directly scope and spec out and entire project and have chatgpt run codex directly in the web app and it will be able to see and review the codex generated code and run agents on your behalf

Wish: one “single-chat” workflow where ChatGPT can orchestrate Codex agents + review code without endless zips/diffs

So imagine this:

You can scope + spec an entire project directly in ChatGPT, and then in the same chat, have ChatGPT run Codex agents on your behalf. ChatGPT can see the code Codex generates, review it, iterate, spawn the next agent, move to the next task, etc — all without leaving the web app.

That would be my ideal workflow.

What I do today (and what’s annoying about it)

Right now I use ChatGPT exclusively with GPT-5.2 Pro to do all my planning/spec work:

full project spec
epics, tasks, PR breakdowns
acceptance criteria
requirements
directives / conventions / “don’t mess this up” notes
sequencing + dependency ordering

Then I orchestrate Codex agents externally using my own custom bash script loop (people have started calling it “ralph” lol).

This works, but…

The big pain point is the back-and-forth between Codex and ChatGPT:

Codex finishes a task / implementation
I want GPT-5.2 Pro to do the final review (because that’s where it shines)
which means every single time I have to send GPT-5.2 Pro either:
- a zip of the repo, or
- a diff patch

And that is incredibly annoying and breaks flow.

(Also: file upload limits make this worse — I think it’s ~50MB? Either way, you hit it fast on real projects.)

Why this would be a game changer

If GPT-5.2 Pro could directly call Codex agents inside ChatGPT, this would be the best workflow ever.

Better than Cursor, Claude Code, etc.

The loop would look like:

GPT-5.2 Pro: plan + spec + task breakdown
GPT-5.2 Pro: spawn Codex agent for Task 1
Codex agent: implements in the workspace
Codex agent returns results directly into the chat
GPT-5.2 Pro: reviews the actual code (not screenshots/diffs/zips), requests fixes or approves
GPT-5.2 Pro: move to Task 2, spawn another agent
repeat

No interactive CLI juggling. No “agent session” permanence needed. They’re basically throwaway anyway — what matters is the code output + review loop.

The blocker (as I understand it)

The current issue is basically:

GPT-5.2 Pro can’t use ChatGPT Apps / MCP tools
it runs in its own environment and can’t call the MCP servers connected to ChatGPT (aka “ChatGPT Apps”)
even if it could, it still wouldn’t have direct access to your local filesystem

So you’d need one of these:

Codex runs in the cloud (fine, but then you need repo access + syncing)
or GitHub-based flow (clone into a cloud env)
or the ideal option…

The ideal solution

Let users run an MCP server locally that securely bridges a permitted workspace into ChatGPT.

Then:

Codex can run on your system
it can access the exact workspace you allow
and ChatGPT (GPT-5.2 Pro) can orchestrate agents + review code without uploads
no more zipping repos or pasting diff patches just to get a review

The main differentiator

The differentiator isn’t “another coding assistant.”

It’s:

✅ ChatGPT (GPT-5.2 Pro) having direct, continuous access to your workspace/codebase
✅ so code review and iteration happens naturally in one place
✅ without repeatedly uploading your repo every time you want feedback

Curious if anyone else is doing a similar “ChatGPT plans / Codex implements / ChatGPT reviews” loop and feeling the same friction.

Also: if you are doing it, what’s your least painful way to move code between the two right now?

The real unlock isn’t “Codex in ChatGPT” — it’s GPT-5.2 Pro as the orchestrator layer that writes the perfect agent prompts

Adding another big reason I want this “single-chat” workflow (ChatGPT + GPT-5.2 Pro + Codex agents all connected):

I genuinely think GPT-5.2 Pro would be an insanely good orchestrator — like, the missing layer that makes Codex agents go from “pretty good” to “holy sh*t.”

Because if you’ve used Codex agents seriously, you already know the truth:

Agent coding quality is mostly a prompting problem.
The more detailed and precise you are, the better the result.

Where most people struggle

A lot of people “prompt” agents the same way they chat:

a few sentences
conversational vibe
vague intentions
missing constraints / edge cases / acceptance criteria
no explicit file touch list
no “don’t do X” directives
no test expectations
no stepwise plan

Then they’re surprised when the agent:

interprets intent incorrectly,
makes assumptions,
touches the wrong files,
ships something that kind of works but violates the project’s architecture.

The fix is obvious but annoying:

You have to translate messy human chat into a scripted, meticulously detailed implementation prompt.

That translation step is the hard part.

Why GPT-5.2 Pro is perfect for this

This is exactly where GPT-5.2 Pro shines.

In my experience, it’s the best model at:

understanding intent
extracting requirements that you implied but didn’t explicitly state
turning those into clear written directives
producing structured specs with acceptance criteria
anticipating “gotchas” and adding guardrails
writing prompts that are basically “agent-proof”

It intuitively “gets it” better than any other model I’ve used.

And that’s the point:

GPT-5.2 Pro isn’t just a planner — it’s a prompt compiler.

The current dumb loop (human as delegator)

Right now the workflow is basically:

Use GPT-5.2 Pro to make a great plan/spec
Feed that plan to a Codex agent (or try to manually convert it)
Codex completes a task
Send the result back to GPT-5.2 Pro for review + next-step prompt
Repeat…

And the human is basically reduced to:

copy/paste router
zip/diff courier
“run next step” delegator

This is only necessary because ChatGPT can’t directly call Codex agents as a bridge to your filesystem/codebase.

Why connecting them would be a gamechanger

If GPT-5.2 Pro could directly orchestrate Codex agents, you’d get a compounding effect:

GPT-5.2 Pro writes better prompts than humans
Better prompts → Codex needs less “figuring out”
Less figuring out → fewer wrong turns and rework
Fewer wrong turns → faster iterations and cleaner PRs

Also: GPT-5.2 Pro is expensive — and you don’t want it doing the heavy lifting of coding or running full agent loops.

You want it doing what it does best:

plan
spec
define constraints
translate intent into exact instructions
evaluate results
decide the next action

Let Codex agents do:

investigation in the repo
implementation
edits across files
running tests / fixing failures

Then return results to GPT-5.2 Pro to:

review
request changes
approve
spawn next agent

That’s the dream loop.

The missing key

To me, the missing unlock between Codex and ChatGPT is literally just this:

✅ GPT-5.2 Pro (in ChatGPT) needs a direct bridge to run Codex agents against your workspace
✅ so the orchestrator layer can continuously translate intent → perfect agent prompts → review → next prompt
✅ without the human acting as a manual router

The pieces exist.

They’re just not connected.

And I think a lot of people aren’t realizing how big that is.

If you connect GPT-5.2 Pro in ChatGPT with Codex agents, I honestly think it could be 10x bigger than Cursor / Claude Code in terms of workflow power.

If anyone else is doing the “GPT-5.2 Pro plans → Codex implements → GPT-5.2 Pro reviews” dance: do you feel like you’re mostly acting as a courier/dispatcher too?

The UX is the real missing link: ChatGPT should be the “mothership” where planning + agent execution + history all live

Another huge factor people aren’t talking about enough is raw UX.

For decades, “coding” was fundamentally:

filesystem/workspace-heavy
IDE-driven
constant checking: editor → git → tests → logs → back to editor

Then agents showed up (Codex, Claude Code, etc.) and the workflow shifted hard toward:

“chat with an agent”
CLI-driven execution
you give a task, the agent works, you supervise in the IDE like an operator

That evolution is real. But there’s still a massive gap:

the interchange between ChatGPT itself (GPT-5.2 Pro) and your agent sessions is broken.

The current trap: people end up “living” inside agent chats

What I see a lot:

People might use ChatGPT (especially a higher-end model) early on to plan/spec.

But once implementation starts, they fall into a pattern of:

chatting primarily with Codex/Claude agents
iterating step-by-step in those agent sessions
treating each run like a disposable session

And that’s the mistake.

Because those sessions are essentially throwaway logs.
You lose context. You lose rationale. You lose decision history. You lose artifacts.

Meanwhile, your ChatGPT conversations — especially with a Pro model — are actually gold.

They’re where you distill:

intent
product decisions
technical constraints
architecture calls
tradeoffs
“why we chose X over Y”
what “done” actually means

That’s not just helpful — that’s the asset.

How I see ChatGPT: the headquarters / boardroom / “mothership”

For me, ChatGPT is not just a tool, it’s the archive of the most valuable thinking:

the boardroom
the executive meeting room
the decision-making HQ

It’s where the project becomes explicit and coherent.

And honestly, the Projects feature already hints at this. I use it as a kind of living record for each project: decisions, specs, conventions, roadmap, etc.

So the killer workflow is obvious:

keep everything in one place — inside the ChatGPT web app.

Not just the planning.

Everything.

The form factor shift: “agents are called from the mothership”

Here’s the change I’m arguing for:

Instead of:

me hopping between GPT-5.2 Pro chats and agent chats
me manually relaying context/prompting
me uploading zips/diffs for reviews

It becomes:

ChatGPT (GPT-5.2 Pro) = the home base
Codex agents = “subprocesses” launched from that home base
each agent run returns output back into the same ChatGPT thread
GPT-5.2 Pro reviews, decides next step, spawns next agent

So now:

✅ delegations happen from the same “mothership” chat
✅ prompts come from the original plan/spec context
✅ the historical log stays intact
✅ you don’t lose artifacts between sessions
✅ you don’t have to bounce between environments

This is the missing UX link.

Why the interface matters as much as the model

The real win isn’t “a better coding agent.”

It’s a new interaction model:

ChatGPT becomes the “prompt interface” to your entire workspace
Codex becomes the execution arm that touches files/runs tests
GPT-5.2 Pro becomes the commander that:
- translates intent into precise directives
- supervises quality
- maintains continuity across weeks/months

And if it’s connected properly, it starts to feel like Codex is just an extension of GPT-5.2 Pro.

Not a separate tool you have to “go talk to.”

The most interesting part: model-to-model orchestration (“AI-to-AI”)

Something I’d love to see:

GPT-5.2 Pro not only writing the initial task prompt, but actually conversing with the Codex agent during execution:

Codex: “I found X, but Y is ambiguous. Which approach do you want?”
GPT-5.2 Pro: “Choose approach B, adhere to these constraints, update tests in these locations, don’t touch these files.”

That is the “wall” today:
Nobody wants to pass outputs back and forth manually between models.
That’s ancient history.

This should be a direct chain:
GPT-5.2 Pro → Codex agent → GPT-5.2 Pro, fully inside one chat.

Why this changes how much you even need the IDE

If ChatGPT is the real operational home base and can:

call agents
read the repo state
show diffs
run tests
summarize changes
track decisions and standards

…then you’d barely need to live in your IDE the way you used to.

You’d still use it, sure — but it becomes secondary:

spot-checking
occasional debugging
local dev ergonomics

The primary interface becomes ChatGPT.

That’s the new form factor.

The bottom line

The unlock isn’t just “connect Codex to ChatGPT.”

It’s:

Make ChatGPT the persistent HQ where the best thinking lives — and let agents be ephemeral workers dispatched from that HQ.

Then your planning/spec discussions don’t get abandoned once implementation begins.

They become the central source of truth that continuously drives the agents.

That’s the UX shift that would make this whole thing feel inevitable.

submitted by /u/immortalsol
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Codex as a ChatGPT App: Chat in the Web App and Orchestrate Codex Agents

Quick Overview

Key Points

Outline