Codex CLI's background daemon, and how to stop it
Also: Lambda Web Functions, GitHub's outage cause, and a Docker Hub token bug fixed
The main thing
Since version 0.157.0, OpenAI's Codex CLI starts a background daemon whenever you open an interactive session. That's according to GitHub issue #48195. The CLI now has a houseguest that stays after the party ends.
The report says the daemon (codex app-server --managed-daemon) runs with no TTY. It keeps running after every Codex window closes, until you run codex app-server daemon stop or reboot. It also:
- Copies the whole platform package (about 374 MB) into
~/.codex/packages/app-server-daemon/releases/<version>/and runs from that copy. After that, the backend version no longer follows the version your package manager installed. - Starts an updater that checks 5 minutes after launch and then every hour. It downloads new releases and restarts the backend, which can kill turns that are still running.
- Keeps the environment of whichever session started it. If your first session set
HTTPS_PROXY, later sessions go through that proxy too.
The reporter wants daemon_auto_start to be opt-in. Some commenters say the CLI is unusable on Windows. One Windows 10 LTSC user fixed it by setting daemon_auto_start = false in config.toml. The thread shows a commit that references the issue on Sept 28, but there is no official reply from OpenAI in it.
Here is the reporter's workaround:
codex features disable daemon_auto_start
codex app-server daemon stop
pkill -f 'app-server daemon pid-update-loop'
rm -rf ~/.codex/packages/app-server-daemon
You need the pkill line because daemon stop leaves the updater running.
On Hacker News (607 points), people disagree. One commenter says auto-updates are standard now: "Browsers do it." Another found about 12 GB of old versions on their disk. A third says Claude Code works the same way and points to old versions in ~/.local/share/claude/versions/ and leftover background tasks.
If you run Codex on a work machine, check it today. Your security team will want to know about a proxy setting that sticks and a binary that updates itself.
Quick bits
AWS Lambda launches Web Functions. Your code listens on a port and serves HTTP itself, so Express or Hono run with no adapters. You pay for active CPU time and the memory you hold. It supports Node.js only, runs in five Regions, and works as a CloudFront origin.
GitHub explains its Oct 12 outage. From 11:51 UTC, 500 errors broke Issues, Pull Requests, Projects and Actions. The cause was an expensive query from the notifications pipeline that used up database replica capacity. Notifications were delayed until 20:16 UTC.
Gemini 4 Argon arrives on Vercel AI Gateway. Google's model is built for coding and agent work. It has a 1M-token context and thinking levels (low, medium, high) in place of budgets. Call it as google/gemini-4-argon.
"AI is a tool and using it well takes skill" answers Rich Hickey's "'AI' is Not a Tool." Its argument: a saw doesn't guarantee a straight cut either. HN has 604 comments, so bring snacks.
pnpm 12.13.0 adds pnpm profile and pnpm token. It also adds storeIndexFormat: files for stores that several machines share over a network filesystem, where SQLite locking could corrupt index.db. Python resolution with --lockfile-only is about ten times faster.
Character.ai files for Chapter 11 to sell the company. The platform is still up, and the sale should close by end of November or early December. If no buyer is found, the platform will shut down. You can export your data now.
Docker Hub fixes a token bug (CVE-2026-105445). From Aug 26, 2024 to Sept 30, 2026, converting an account to an organization moved its access tokens to the new owner, and the old holder kept the secret. Docker fixed this Sept 30 and turned off transferred tokens Oct 8. If you got no Oct 2 email, you were not exposed.
Linus Torvalds used Claude Code on a kernel branch. noref-filemap-read-with-llm reads the page cache without folio references, for small reads of one file from many threads. He says the LLM wrote the code and tests "under my direction."
Patch roundup
- Ivanti Connect Secure, CVE-2026-104935: our source names no fixed version; get it from Ivanti.
- Microsoft Windows Shell, CVE-2026-96951: our source names no fixed version; get it from Microsoft.
Go run ps aux | grep app-server. We'll wait.