From account creation to shipping production code — a structured path for individuals and engineering teams adopting Codex.
Ten minutes from sign-up to your first AI-generated feature — this guide covers every step with copy-pasteable commands.
The Codex onboarding experience is designed to deliver value immediately. Most developers generate working, idiomatic code within ten minutes of creating an account. This guide structures the onboarding journey into four phases: account setup, first project, team collaboration, and advanced configuration. Each phase builds on the previous one, and you can stop at any point — Codex is fully functional after phase one.
Engineering managers onboarding an entire team should read through the team collaboration section before sending invitations. A twenty-minute planning session — deciding on project structure, shared configuration, and which integrations to enable first — makes the difference between a smooth team rollout and a fragmented experience. The configuration best practices section at the end of this guide covers the settings that teams most frequently adjust after their first week of use.
Follow this checklist in order — each step activates capabilities used by the next.
| Step | Action | Time | Prerequisite |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Create a Codex account and choose a plan | 2 min | Email address |
| 2 | Install the Codex CLI | 3 min | Terminal access |
| 3 | Authenticate with API key | 1 min | Account created |
| 4 | Run codex init in a project | 2 min | Existing codebase |
| 5 | Generate your first feature | 2 min | Project initialized |
| 6 | Install IDE plugin (optional) | 3 min | VS Code / JetBrains / Neovim |
| 7 | Enable automated code review | 5 min | GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket |
| 8 | Invite team members | 2 min | Professional plan |
Create your Codex account, pick a plan, and get your API key — start to finish in under three minutes.
Navigate to codex.gr.com and click Get Started. You will create an account using your email address or an existing GitHub account for faster setup. Choose the Starter plan to begin — it is free, requires no credit card, and includes 500 code generations per month. If you are evaluating Codex for a team, the Professional 14-day free trial gives you full access to team features without payment information. After creating your account, navigate to the API Keys section of the dashboard and generate your first key. Copy it to your clipboard — you will need it in the next step. Store the key securely. The dashboard shows your key only once after generation, though you can revoke and regenerate at any time.
Install the Codex CLI, authenticate, initialize a project, and generate your first feature — all in five terminal commands.
Install the Codex CLI using the instructions on the download center. On macOS with Homebrew, it is a single command: brew install codex-gr/tap/codex. Windows users download the MSI installer. Linux users add the APT or RPM repository. After installation, run codex auth and paste your API key when prompted. The CLI stores your key in the system credential store — you will not need to enter it again on that machine.
Navigate to an existing project directory and run codex init. The CLI auto-detects your language, framework, and package manager. Answer a few prompts about your code style preferences — indent width, quote style, naming conventions. These preferences are saved in a .codex.yml file at the project root that you can commit to version control. Now run your first generation: codex generate "a health check endpoint that returns JSON with uptime and version". The CLI produces the implementation, writes it to the appropriate file, and shows you a diff you can review before accepting.
Invite your team, set up shared configuration, and enable automated code review — Codex amplifies its value when the whole team uses it.
From the Codex dashboard, navigate to Team Settings and click Invite Members. Enter email addresses — team members receive an invitation with setup instructions. If your organization uses an identity provider with SCIM support, configure automatic provisioning instead: new hires get Codex access the moment they appear in your IdP, and departing team members lose access within minutes of offboarding. Set up shared project configuration by committing the .codex.yml file to your repository — every team member who runs codex init in that repo inherits the shared settings automatically.
Enable automated code review by installing the Codex GitHub App, GitLab integration, or Bitbucket add-on from the Integrations page. Grant access to the repositories you want Codex to review. From that moment forward, every new pull request receives an automated review within seconds — Codex checks for logic errors, security vulnerabilities, performance issues, and style violations. The review appears as a comment on the PR with line-specific annotations. Configure the review behavior in .codex.yml: which checks to run, severity thresholds for blocking merges, and paths to ignore. Team dashboards begin populating with velocity metrics, review coverage, and adoption statistics within a day of enabling review across the team.
"The onboarding was remarkably smooth. We had twelve developers up and running with Codex within a single afternoon — and they were shipping production code by day three." — Finn E. Gallagher, Engineering Manager, Atlantic Systems, Dublin
Customize Codex to match your team's existing workflows — configuration that pays dividends every sprint.
After a week of daily use, most teams refine their Codex configuration. Common adjustments include: adding custom code review rules that enforce team-specific conventions, configuring code generation templates for frequently-built patterns like CRUD endpoints or auth modules, setting up CI/CD pipeline integration so Codex generates code and reviews it within your existing deployment workflow, and enabling Slack notifications so the team sees review results and generation summaries in channels they already monitor.
The .codex.yml reference in the documentation covers every configuration option with examples. Focus on the settings that address your team's specific bottlenecks — if code review is your biggest delay, invest time in tuning review rules. If boilerplate across microservices is the pain point, build generation templates. Teams that spend thirty minutes on configuration after their first week see disproportionate gains in Codex effectiveness compared to teams that stick with defaults indefinitely.
Individual developers complete setup and generate working code in under ten minutes. Team-wide onboarding with SSO and shared configuration takes under an hour.
The individual onboarding path — account creation, CLI installation, authentication, project initialization, and first code generation — is designed to complete within ten minutes. Every step provides immediate feedback, so new users see progress continuously rather than waiting through a long setup process. Team onboarding takes longer because it involves coordination: deciding on shared configuration, setting up the repository integration, and configuring identity provider connections. With preparation, an engineering manager can onboard a team of twenty developers in under an hour — the per-developer setup remains ten minutes, and the shared configuration work happens once.
CLI first, then IDE plugin, then automated code review — each step deepens your Codex integration without overwhelming you with options.
The recommended path starts with the CLI because it exposes every Codex capability through a consistent interface — learning the CLI builds a mental model that transfers to the IDE plugins and web dashboard. After a week of CLI use, install the IDE plugin for your editor — you will recognize the same concepts in a more visual interface. Enable automated code review last because it requires the most configuration and benefits from having team members already comfortable with Codex output. The documentation includes progressive tutorials for each stage, and the in-app help system suggests next steps based on your usage patterns.
Invite via email from the Team Settings dashboard, or configure SCIM provisioning for automated lifecycle management through your identity provider.
Team invitations are managed through the Codex web dashboard under Team Settings. Enter email addresses individually or paste a comma-separated list. Invited members receive an email with a sign-up link that pre-associates them with your team. For Enterprise plans, SCIM provisioning eliminates manual invitations entirely — configure the SCIM endpoint in your identity provider, and user accounts are created, updated, and deactivated automatically based on IdP group membership. Role assignments can also be managed through SCIM group mappings, so a developer added to the "Engineering" group in your IdP automatically receives Developer-level Codex access.
Set your language runtime, package manager, and code style preferences first — these cascade to every code generation and review result.
The initial codex init prompts cover the essential configuration: language runtime version, package manager, indent style, quote preference, and naming conventions. These settings influence every code generation — if your team uses 2-space indentation and single quotes in JavaScript, setting those preferences ensures generated code matches your existing codebase without manual reformatting. After the first week, review the .codex.yml reference to add project-specific rules: ignored paths for code review, custom generation templates, and CI/CD integration settings.
Whether you are looking to download Codex for the first time, explore the Codex CLI for terminal-native development, or understand how Codex AI transforms your engineering practice, the platform provides integrated tools for every stage of software delivery. The AI code generation engine produces idiomatic code across 40+ languages, while intelligent code review catches bugs before they reach production. Teams can automate testing with the integrated testing suite, debug efficiently with automated debugging, and enforce quality standards with deep code analysis.
Developers integrating Codex into their toolchain start with CLI installation and IDE plugin setup for their preferred editor. The comprehensive API enables custom automation, CI/CD pipeline integration connects Codex to your deployment workflow, and Docker containerization simplifies environment configuration. For deeper integration, see the full documentation covering every feature in detail.