| name | codex-image |
| description | Generate images using OpenAI's Codex backend API with gpt-image-2 tool. Use when the user asks to generate images via Codex, ChatGPT image generation, or gpt-image-2. Triggers on "codex image", "codex generate", "gpt-image", "chatgpt generate image". Token is auto-fetched from chatgpt.com session — no manual token setup needed. |
Codex Image Generation
Generate images via chatgpt.com/backend-api/codex/responses using the image_generation tool (gpt-image-2).
Requirements
- A ChatGPT account (token is fetched automatically via browser session)
- No manual token setup needed — the skill handles auth automatically
Auth Token Resolution (in order)
--token argument (CLI only)CODEX_IMAGE_TOKEN environment variable--token-file argument (CLI only)~/.chatgpt_auth.json cache (valid for 8 hours)- Auto login flow — fetches from
https://chatgpt.com/api/auth/session via browser_use:
- If already logged in → token extracted and saved to cache immediately
- If not logged in → opens
chatgpt.com/auth/login in the browser, then polls every 10s in a new tab for up to 5 minutes
- On success → saves token to
~/.chatgpt_auth.json (chmod 600, token + timestamp only)
- Token is never printed to stdout or logs — it stays in the cache file only
Usage
Text-to-image
python3 scripts/codex_image.py "a cute rabbit on a light background" \
--output rabbit.png \
--model gpt-5.4 \
--effort low
Image-to-image / reference image
python3 scripts/codex_image_edit.py "turn this person into a cinematic iOS AI assistant portrait" \
--image reference.jpg \
--output portrait.png \
--model gpt-5.4 \
--effort low
codex_image_edit.py encodes the local reference image as a base64 data URL and sends it as multimodal input (input_text + input_image) to the same Codex responses endpoint, then asks the image_generation tool to create a new image from the reference.
Parameters
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
prompt | (required) | Image description or edit instruction |
--image | (edit only, required) | Local reference image path for image-to-image generation |
--output | codex_image.png / codex_image_edit.png | Output file path |
--model | gpt-5.4 | Codex model |
--effort | low | Reasoning effort: low/medium/high |
--token | - | Access token directly (skips auto auth; text-to-image script only) |
--token-file | - | File containing token (skips auto auth; text-to-image script only) |
Output
JSON with success, path, size, revised_prompt on success.
Auth Script (standalone)
python3 scripts/get_auth.py
Returns JSON {"success": true, "source": "cache|session|login"} — the token itself is never printed to stdout. It is written only to ~/.chatgpt_auth.json (chmod 600, token + timestamp only, no PII). This prevents the token from appearing in shell logs, conversation context, or screenshots.
Workflow
- Token: auto-resolved via
get_auth.py:
- Already cached → use directly
- Already logged in (browser session) → extract immediately
- Not logged in →
open pops the ChatGPT login page to the user in foreground, then polls every 10s (up to 5 min) until login is detected
- Construct the prompt from the user's request.
- Run
scripts/codex_image.py with appropriate arguments.
- Send the generated image to the user.
Notes
- Token is cached in
~/.chatgpt_auth.json for 8 hours (chmod 600, token + timestamp only — no PII stored).
- Token is never printed to stdout or conversation context — always read from cache file internally.
- The endpoint requires
stream: true; the script handles SSE parsing internally.
- Token is a ChatGPT session token, not an OpenAI API key. It expires and is refreshed automatically on next use.
- Image generation uses
gpt-image-2 under the hood with auto quality/size.
- Token usage is split: main
usage tracks text tokens, tool_usage.image_gen tracks image tokens separately.
- This uses an internal/unofficial API endpoint. Availability may change.
