295 pointsby bakigul3 hours ago22 comments
  • dangelosaurus3 hours ago
    Hey HN, Michael here, co-founder of Promptfoo and one of the people working on the Codex Security CLI at OpenAI.

    Thanks for checking this out and for flagging the auth issues. We just open-sourced it, and there's still plenty for us to improve. Expect the product to evolve quickly.

    If you try it, I'd really appreciate hearing what works well and what you think we should improve. Happy to answer questions here.

    CLI docs: https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/security/cli

    EDIT: If you'd like to help make this better, we're hiring: https://openai.com/careers/full-stack-software-engineer-cybe...

    • orangelimesodaan hour ago
      > Have experience shipping production full-stack products across modern web frontends and backend services.

      I'm amazed that the requirements are so low (or at least this vague) for jobs at companies like these.

      Has anyone else had the experience of going to an interview and feeling like you were never asked any qualifying questions?

      All the questions were easy, your answers were straightforward, you "got them right", but then were not chosen?

      I find on the other side, they're also left with dozens of people who "passed" and then it comes down to a pretty arbitrary decision on who gets hired (if we are talking external, no referral, etc.)

      I wonder if they can make job descriptions highly specific to filter the shortlist faster and more effectively (to actually get a shortlist).

      Anyway end rant. Cool job, hope you fill it.

      • jameshartan hour ago
        This sounds like it’s just an app development role, not a security analysis position, so I’m not sure what your complaint is.
      • pertymcpert31 minutes ago
        If you didn't already know, jobs at highly competitive companies tend to have vague job requirements because they expect to be able to apply your raw intelligence to changing demands quickly. There's no point being hyper-specific about the exact software packages because that's not what they want. What they want is someone who, after talking to an interviewer for 30 minutes, leaves them with the thought "Wow, this person can do anything we need of them. They can probably tell us what we need too and take ownership of large projects. Hire!"
        • moscoea minute ago
          Agree. Being smart, competent, and high in conscientiousness is more important than any highly specific “qualification”. It’s not about checking a bunch of boxes. If you have a track record of getting shit done, you’ll have something to contribute.
    • vladoh2 hours ago
      This looks great, thanks for open-sourcing it!

      How does it deal with the current guardrails 5.6 Sol has on finding vulnerabilities? When I use it in the Codex app it would sometimes say it found a vulnerability, but it cannot tell me what it is.

      • dangelosaurus18 minutes ago
        Thanks! You've run into a real limitation: the CLI doesn't bypass the model's cybersecurity guardrails. If GPT-5.6 Sol finds a vulnerability but refuses to explain it, switching from the Codex app to the CLI won't automatically fix that.

        For authorized defensive work, Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC1/Daybreak) can reduce refusals depending on the model and the account or organization where access is provisioned. It isn't a blanket bypass.

        If you're an open-source maintainer, you can apply for conditional Codex Security access here:

        https://openai.com/form/codex-for-oss/

        For enterprise teams, the public Daybreak onboarding guide is here:

        https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001261-enterprise-dayb...

        If you have an example of "found a vulnerability but won't tell me what it is," I'd love to take a look too. You can send it to use with /feedback (or message me).

    • Quaian hour ago
      I tried it, it started a scan but stopped after hitting the rate-limit of my account. It gave up after just a minute of retrying (rate limits are tokens per minute, so... :P).

      It said "Partial output was kept at <...>", but I dont see a obvious way of picking it up in a new scan? (The failed run cost me ~$13)

      • dangelosaurusan hour ago
        Yeah, you're right. A per-minute rate limit shouldn't kill a scan after a minute, and "partial output was kept" makes it sound like you can pick up where you left off. You can't yet, unfortunately. --max-cost can limit estimated spend, but we still need proper retries and resume. Sorry you spent $13 finding that out. Please send me an email and I'll help make it right.
    • gizmodo592 hours ago
      When would I use this over the plugin in codex? Which I think can be invoked from cli as well
      • dangelosaurus2 hours ago
        The plugin, including when invoked through the Codex CLI, is great for scanning the repo you're currently working in. The standalone Security CLI/SDK uses the same scanner, but is built for running security across many repos over time: org-wide scans, historical results, deduplication, false-positive tracking, budget controls, and CI integration.

        We've been talking to hundreds of engineering and security teams, and their feedback is shaping what we build.

        Like Promptfoo, our goal is practical tooling that fits into the workflows teams already have.

    • strictnein2 hours ago
      Does it require hitting OpenAI's APIs or can one also stand up a local OpenAI compatible LLM endpoint?
      • dangelosaurus2 hours ago
        We are actively working on officially supporting this. Because it's open source it is pretty easy to point a coding agent at it now and switch out the model.
        • ignoramous2 hours ago
          Exciting! Is there any open GitHub issue we can track?
    • robotswantdata3 hours ago
      Been watching your progress for a while, glad OpenAI have looked after you and the team and you still get to ship!
    • 6thbit2 hours ago
      How does it fare against its own codebase?
    • troupo2 hours ago
      > co-founder of Promptfoo and one of the people working on the Codex Security CLI at OpenAI.

      > Thanks for checking this out and for flagging the auth issues.

      Offtopic, but this right here is why I don't believe any marketing around "great amazing models that one-shot everything and programmers are no longer needed".

      You just have to look at what these labs routinely produce, and their own products.

      Edit to respond to @simonw whose comment I saw before he retracted it ;)

      This comment is tied directly to consistent continuous claims by the LLM labs. Their own products disprove their own claims, and it would indeed be nice if fewer people believed them :)

      • 2 hours ago
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    • 2 hours ago
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  • gregwebs2 hours ago
    Just ran it on a small repo. It ran for almost an hour and then got interrupted. It drained half my weekly usage on a Pro plan.

      npx codex-security scan .
      [00:00] Preparing scan
      [00:00] Authentication: stored Codex credentials.
      [00:03] Preparing scan
      [01:20] Running scan
      [01:20] Preflight: worker delegation supported (up to 8 worker slots).
      [52:47] Running scan
      codex-security: Could not save the Codex Security scan: Repository HEAD changed while the scan was running. Start a new scan.
      codex-security: Partial output was kept at ...
    • brapan hour ago
      Working as intended
    • teaearlgraycold2 hours ago
      I plan to hack it to use openrouter and Kimi K3 or GLM 5.2 to keep expenses reasonable.

      For context can you share the line count?

      • ymir_ean hour ago
        FYI: Kimi K3 is relatively expensive on open router API pricing for agentic tasks, or at least that's been my experience playing around with it.
        • teaearlgraycoldan hour ago
          They just opened the weights. I expect competition from various providers will drop the price a bit. But you're right. I'd hope a model closer to GLM 5.2's price would be sufficiently useful.
    • dangelosaurusan hour ago
      Oof, that's a bad outcome. Half your weekly usage and a 50-minute scan just to get a HEAD error at the end is not acceptable. --max-cost can help limit estimated spend, but that doesn't fix the underlying problem or give you your quota back. We need to handle a changing checkout and partial results much better. Sorry you ran into this. Please send me an email.
  • varencan hour ago
    It's interesting how much of the value here is providing the english Skill definitions that tell the LLM what to do: https://github.com/openai/codex-security/tree/main/sdk/types...

    Some of approaches there could be useful in other contexts. OAI has the compute to experiment with different prompts and I'd expect these to be somewhat optimized.

  • luciana1u2 hours ago
    security tools from AI companies feel like fire departments run by arsonists. useful, sure, but you can't help noticing who benefits from all the fires
  • bakigul3 hours ago
    Update: As far as I understand, this was already available as a Codex plugin. The main news is that OpenAI has now open-sourced it, and development is still moving quickly.
  • moehm3 hours ago
    Alibaba just open sourced their version of a CLI code review tool too.

    https://github.com/alibaba/open-code-review

    • bakigul3 hours ago
      They are entirely different products
  • minraws3 hours ago
    I seem to have gotten a bunch of you are trying to stuff we don't allow errors.. very annoying.

    Can they explain what types of projects it works on and how does it check I own it? Like will it just not work on Linux kernel even on my own patches to it?

  • iancarroll2 hours ago
    Looks great but the CLI output is not particularly interesting while the scan is running. I wish it could show token usage, some kind of progress, etc.
  • jaimex241 minutes ago
    How can I trust this wont go rogue and hack Hugging Face?
  • petilon2 hours ago
    How does it work? Does the tool upload code to ChatGPT for analysis? That may not be allowed for some corporate projects.
    • daishi552 hours ago
      Yes, I suspect companies that don’t allow ChatGPT will not be able to use the ChatGPT security analysis tool.
    • 2 hours ago
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    • derac2 hours ago
      Amazon bedrock is an option for gpt models that does not send your data to openai.
      • petilon2 hours ago
        Does Amazon offer better privacy guarantees than OpenAI?
        • edot2 hours ago
          Yes, if only due to the business models being entirely different. AWS sells compute. OpenAI sells models. One of these things benefits from training on your data significantly more than the other.
  • game_the0ry3 hours ago
    I wonder if tools like this will put companies like snyk out of business. We use snyk at work and I have not been satisfied.
    • binsquare3 hours ago
      I like to think it just upped the bar, but good durable expertise will need to rise with it.
    • bakigul3 hours ago
      Why would a few code snippets put Snyk out of business?
      • krater232 hours ago
        I don't understand why Snyk is IN business in any way. Who really wants to upload his own code to a company that is specialized at searching security issues?

        How can I trust that they show me all findings they have instead of selling the best ones to some three letter organisations?

  • alealvarezarg3 hours ago
    I was actually discussing solutions for this with my coworkers—building white-hat security agents. It seems like openai/codex-security could simplify a lot of that, or at least provide a version of Codex that's purpose-built for security workflows. Really exciting news!
  • halfax2 hours ago
    be careful , your code will go to the cloud/ai using this
    • bakigul2 hours ago
      Yeah, this isn’t exactly new for us :d
  • shooker4353 hours ago
    Just getting auth issues so far...
  • petesergeant3 hours ago
    I don't think there's much to this other than it being a convenient CI wrapper around their existing models?

    Edit: there's a little bit more meat here: https://github.com/openai/codex-security/tree/main/sdk/types...

    • paxys2 hours ago
      All of codex is a wrapper around their models. There’s still value in a purpose-built harness.
    • bakigul3 hours ago
      Yeah, I think so too.
    • bamboozled3 hours ago
      Yeah but management loved the idea.
  • yashasgunderiaan hour ago
    from plugin to main focus, wow
  • bearsyankees3 hours ago
    would love it to see it h2h against https://github.com/usestrix/strix (45k stars)
    • petesergeant3 hours ago
      They are entirely different products
      • bearsyankees3 hours ago
        yeah you mean because OAI is only whitebox? or expand on that a bit, haven't played around a ton w the oss codex sec
  • dlahodaan hour ago
    Allow only OpenAi key? Requires Cyber registration? Yes. Yes. Useless.
  • onatozmenan hour ago
    hey
  • sillysaurusx3 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • sams99an hour ago
    I got my agent to analyze it and do a write up here:

    https://wasnotwas.com/writing/inside-openai-codex-security/

  • knighthacker2 hours ago
    The scanner is the least interesting part of this. The harness around it is the product: dedup across runs, false-positive tracking, budget controls, CI gating. That is the layer where we'll see most interesting innovations in my opinion.

    I'm building AQ, a coding harness for teams and the pattern is identical. For a while, I thought the raw model is the answer and quickly changed my mind. Purpose built harnesses are way more powerful than it sounds.