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switch has no effect on Codex CLI while the shared app-server daemon is running #162
Description
Environment: codex-auth 0.3.0, codex-cli 0.158.0, Linux x64
Recent Codex CLI versions start a shared background app-server daemon (codex app-server daemon), and new codex TUI sessions attach to it by default (--no-daemon opts out). The daemon loads auth.json once at startup and keeps the account in memory.
So after codex-auth switch:
~/.codex/auth.jsonandregistry.jsonare updated correctly- quitting and relaunching
codex, as the README suggests, still uses the old account, because the daemon is still running - the switch only takes effect once the daemon restarts (
codex app-server daemon restart)
From the user's side it looks like switch silently does nothing.
Repro
- Run
codex(this starts the daemon), then quit codex-auth switch <other account>- Run
codexagain:/statusstill shows the previous account
Suggestion
When the daemon is running ($CODEX_HOME/app-server-control/app-server-control.sock resolves), print a hint after Switched to ... pointing at codex app-server daemon restart. This is less invasive than killing Codex processes (#149), which would also end every running CLI session.
Related: #85 (same cause, via Codex App remote connections), #149.
Activity
feat(switch): restart the Codex app-server daemon after switching
mdbaniani commentedon Sep 28, 2026
apparently running this after a switch would help codex recognize the switched account : codex app-server daemon restart
obackhouse commentedon Sep 30, 2026
restarting the daemon doesn't allow me to have more that one active account in separate codex CLI instances; before this i could do that (not sure if that was by design but it was a critical feature for me)
codejunkienick commentedon Oct 1, 2026
Do you think switching to --no-daemon flag for codex instances themselves will help?
fix(switch): add explicit daemon restart and stale-auth recovery (#164)
Loongphy commentedon Oct 22, 2026
Resolved by #164 (merged):
switchnow applies the selected credentials to the running daemon — non-disruptive auth reload on codex daemons, restart fallback for upstream daemons.