AI how-to notes · 2026-09-17 · last run 2026-09-17 · 한국어 원문

Checking and updating the Codex CLI version — npm update did not get from 0.153 to 0.154

One line summary

codex --version gives you the version you have; npm view @openai/codex version gives you the latest. To move up, install with @latest attached. We installed 0.153.0 in a temp folder and ran npm update, which only climbed to 0.153.4, while installing @latest went to 0.154.0.

Who this is for

Anyone unsure whether their codex is current
Anyone who ran npm update and didn't get the version bump they expected
Anyone wondering whether a codex update command exists

Test environment

Item	Value
OS	Windows 11 Home (10.0.26200)
Shell	Git Bash
node / npm	v24.19.0 / 11.17.0
codex installed	`codex-cli 0.153.4` (global, `C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\npm`)
npm `latest`	0.154.0
Method	Installed into temp folders with `npm install --prefix`. The global codex was left alone

1. Check the version you have and where it lives

codex --version
npm ls -g @openai/codex

codex-cli 0.153.4
C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\npm
`-- @openai/codex@0.153.4

codex --version prints the version after codex-cli. npm ls -g goes further and shows which global folder holds which version. On Windows, where.exe codex returned two entries from the same folder, codex and codex.cmd.

2. Check the latest version

The package name is @openai/codex.

npm view @openai/codex name version dist-tags --json

{
  "name": "@openai/codex",
  "version": "0.154.0",
  "dist-tags": {
    ...
    "latest": "0.154.0",
    ...
    "alpha": "0.155.0-alpha.16",
    ...
  }
}

(The middle is trimmed. The original has more platform-specific tags.)

npm view @openai/codex versions returned 4,547 entries that day, 186 of them in plain x.y.z form. The tail of the list continued with alpha and platform-specific versions. The recent ones look like this.

0.152.0 0.152.1 0.153.0 0.153.1 0.153.2 0.153.3 0.153.4 0.154.0

codex will also tell you about a new version itself. The top of codex doctor --summary had this line.

   [up] updates      0.154.0 available (current 0.153.4)

3. Reproducing the update in a temp folder

To avoid touching the global codex, we deliberately installed the older 0.153.0 under %TEMP%\longtail_B.

npm install --prefix "C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp\longtail_B\prefix" @openai/codex@0.153.0
npm outdated --prefix "C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp\longtail_B\prefix"

Package        Current   Wanted   Latest  Location                    Depended by
@openai/codex  0.153.0  0.153.4  0.154.0  node_modules/@openai/codex  prefix

Wanted and Latest differ. The package.json in a second folder made the same way recorded "^0.153.0". npm treats 0.153.4 as the target (Wanted) for that range, and leaves 0.154.0 outside it.

We actually ran npm update in that second temp folder.

npm update --prefix "...\longtail_B\prefix2"
npm ls --prefix "...\longtail_B\prefix2"

changed 2 packages, and audited 3 packages in 7s
...
`-- @openai/codex@0.153.4

Running npm update in the folder carrying "^0.153.0" installed 0.153.4, and the runtime confirmed codex-cli 0.153.4. It never reached the latest, 0.154.0.

In the first folder we reinstalled with @latest attached.

npm install --prefix "...\longtail_B\prefix" @openai/codex@latest

changed 2 packages, and audited 3 packages in 8s

found 0 vulnerabilities

`-- @openai/codex@0.154.0
codex-cli 0.154.0

package.json changed to "^0.154.0", and a second npm outdated printed nothing at all.

If you use the global install, the same idea gives you the command below. We did not run it this round.

npm install -g @openai/codex@latest

4. The `codex update` command

The codex --help list has this line.

  update            Update Codex to the latest version

codex update --help shows only the common -c, --enable, --disable and -h options, with nothing about what it changes or how. Because it could touch the global install, we did not run it.

Results

Step	What we did	Resulting version
1	Global `codex --version`	0.153.4
2	Installed `@openai/codex@0.153.0` in a temp folder	0.153.0
3	Installed `@openai/codex@latest` in the first temp folder	0.154.0
4	`npm update` in the second temp folder (0.153.0)	0.153.4
5	Global `codex --version` afterwards	0.153.4 (unchanged)

Each install took 7–8 seconds. We deleted the longtail_B temp folder at the end.

What failed

npm update could not get us to 0.154.0. That isn't an error — it climbed to the Wanted version (0.153.4) that npm outdated had shown.
npm outdated exits with code 1 when there is something to upgrade. In a script, that can read as a failure.

What we did not test

What codex update actually does when run (what it installs, whether it calls npm) — we did not check.
We did not run the global npm install -g @openai/codex@latest. We did not measure problems like global folder permissions or a running codex binary being locked.
We did not capture the first temp folder's package.json right after installation. The "^0.153.0" value comes from the second folder, made with the same command.
We did not check alpha installs, or macOS and Linux. In Command Prompt (cmd.exe) we only looked at version output from the temp install; installing or updating from cmd.exe went unchecked.
We did not check where codex doctor learns about new versions from.