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Codex CLI: Export Conversations to Markdown

CodexView original changelog

Codex CLI 0.148.0 introduces a built-in /export command that saves a complete TUI conversation as a clean Markdown transcript, either to the system clipboard or to a new file. Previously, developers who wanted a readable record of a Codex session had to parse raw .jsonl session logs manually or rely on third-party community scripts. The addition also ships alongside startup improvements that let developers draft prompts while the TUI initializes, showing resume and fork progress in the background.

Key Takeaways

  • Codex CLI 0.148.0 ships a native /export command that converts an entire terminal conversation into a formatted Markdown transcript.
  • Developers can send the export to the clipboard for quick pasting into PRs and chat, or to a new file for longer-term storage.
  • The feature replaces the need for third-party export scripts that developers previously built to work around the lack of a built-in option, since Codex only stored raw .jsonl session logs.
  • The same release lets developers start typing prompts while the TUI initializes, with visible progress during resume and fork startup.
  • 0.148.0 also adds thread credit/cost visibility, a built-in Amazon Bedrock Runtime provider, and async/MCP-capable hooks as separate features in the same release.
  • The release includes several reliability fixes, including more accurate session resume behavior and safer sandbox path handling on Linux and Windows.

A Built-In Way to Save Conversations

Codex CLI 0.148.0, released August 18, 2026, adds a feature developers have been requesting for a while: a native way to turn a terminal session into a shareable, readable document. The new /export command captures an entire TUI conversation — prompts, model responses, tool calls, and all — and converts it into clean Markdown.

Before this release, Codex stored every session as a raw .jsonl log file under ~/.codex/sessions/, which is fine for machine processing but unreadable without extra tooling. Developers filled that gap with independent open-source utilities (community projects like codex-export and codex-session-export on GitHub, plus an Obsidian plugin for archiving sessions into a vault), but none of that was built into Codex itself. The /export command replaces the need for those workarounds for most everyday use cases.

How It Works

Running /export from inside the Codex CLI TUI produces a formatted Markdown transcript of the current conversation. Developers can choose to copy the result straight to the clipboard for pasting into a pull request description, a Slack message, or documentation, or write it out to a new file for longer-term recordkeeping. This is especially useful for teams that want to preserve a record of how an agent arrived at a particular code change, or for developers documenting a debugging session for a teammate.

Faster, Smoother Startup

The same release also smooths out the TUI's startup experience. Developers can now start typing a prompt immediately while Codex initializes in the background, rather than waiting for the interface to finish loading. When resuming a previous session or creating a fork, the TUI now shows progress indicators during that startup window instead of leaving the terminal blank.

Also in This Release

Codex CLI 0.148.0 bundles several other changes alongside the export feature: visibility into estimated thread credits and cost (covered in a separate entry), Amazon Bedrock Runtime added as a built-in model provider with AWS profile and region support, hooks that can now run commands asynchronously and invoke MCP tools, and a round of reliability fixes covering session resume, sandbox path handling, MCP reconnection after OAuth reauthentication, and composer/transcript rendering for pasted text.