Lanes runs the official Codex CLI, so you can drive many Codex sessions at once with full oversight, and switch any session to Claude Code when that fits the task better.
What Lanes adds to Codex
- Parallel sessions. Each the official Codex CLI in a real terminal, one per issue. A session is a PTY attached to its issue; it keeps running when you switch focus, and the card shows Busy, Awaiting input, or Stopped at a glance, with a bell when Codex is waiting on you.
- Isolation. A git worktree and branch per session, managed for you. Worktrees are created under
.worktrees/off the project's base branch, flagged when they hold uncommitted work, and removed automatically when the issue completes clean. - A board. Plan, run, review, and ship, with live status and a bell. Each issue carries instructions that become the session's first prompt; start in Plan mode to see an approach before any edits, or Implement to let Codex start working immediately.
- Your plan, not a meter. Sessions run the real CLI on your existing subscription. Lanes launches the binary you already installed and authenticated; there is no proxy between you and it.
- Choose where the tokens come from. A Gateway profile points a session at a provider you host or buy, applied as real process environment at launch rather than proxied through us. Claude Code is the harness whose variable names Lanes derives automatically today; for Codex you set the names yourself in the profile's free-form environment table, and the profile is otherwise identical. Local LLMs manages the Ollama end of that, including a context window sized to survive a real agent prompt.
- The CLI itself, kept current. The Harness page reports whether
codexis on your PATH, its version, and which manager installed it, and updates through that same manager. It also writes the optional[tui] terminal_titleblock to~/.codex/config.toml, which gives Lanes a second idle signal alongside the rollout transcript. - Mix agents. Run Codex and Claude Code side by side and pick per task. The launch flyout sets CLI, model, and reasoning effort per session, and repo-wide defaults live in settings. Comparing the two on one task is a first-class move: run them side by side and keep the diff you prefer.
There is also an automation path. The Lanes Desktop MCP server, a research preview built into the app, exposes the board to agents: 30 tools to create issues, start and stop sessions, and read terminal output, so a Codex session can file follow-up work or a script can fill the board every morning.
When you need it
Codex on its own handles one task at a time. When you want a set of tasks running in parallel, each isolated and tracked, you need a workspace. Lanes is that workspace, and Codex stays exactly as it is inside it.
One Codex session is a good pair programmer. A backlog is where the workspace earns it: five sessions in five worktrees, none overwriting each other, all visible from one board, each reviewed as its own branch diff before merging.
Finishing is built in too. When Codex signals it is done, two built-in quick commands wrap up the issue from the same panel: Test Worktree runs your test suite inside that issue's worktree, and Complete and Merge commits what remains, merges the branch into your base branch, and cleans up. If tests fail, restart the session, fix, and repeat.
Further reading
- Quick start: install Lanes and run your first session in about two minutes.
- Working with sessions: lifecycle, statuses, and per-session settings.
- Worktree management: isolation, dirty-state warnings, and cleanup.
- Claude Code and Codex side by side: comparing the two agents on real tasks.
- Keep your coding CLIs current: PATH state, versions, and updates through the right manager.