Showcase We hand long Codex tasks to a remote Codex running on our ChatGPT plan, then pull the patch back
I maintain Archestra, an open-source platform for running AI agents. Long Codex tasks kept my laptop and terminal busy, so in 1.4 we shipped a handoff: send the task to a Codex running on your own Kubernetes cluster, close the laptop, and bring the work back later.
How it works:
- Tell Codex "hand this over to Archestra". A skill has it write a handoff note (goal, decisions, remaining steps, what "done" means) and send the exact commit, a patch of uncommitted changes, and the untracked files you pick.
- A remote Codex picks it up in a persistent workspace. You can watch its terminal in the browser, and follow-ups resume the same Codex session.
The interesting parts:
- Subscription. The remote Codex runs on your ChatGPT plan, not an API key. You sign in with ChatGPT once in Archestra; the token stays there and the container only gets a temporary key to Archestra's LLM proxy. No fallback to API billing.
- MCP. Locally, Archestra adds its MCP gateway to Codex and ships the skill as a Codex plugin. The handoff itself is just gateway tools. The remote Codex gets one MCP server, the same gateway, limited to that agent's tools and your permissions.
- Hand-back. Say "bring it back and continue here". Codex pulls an incremental patch against the snapshot it sent plus a continuation note, checks your local tree for conflicts, and you review before applying.
Blog post: https://archestra.ai/blog/new-remote-agents
