Codex CLI’s /goal: Let an AI Agent Remember a Long-Term Goal
Codex CLI recently added a new feature that I think is worth paying attention to: /goal.
I understand it as a way to “let Codex remember a long-term goal.” In the past, when working with an AI agent in the terminal, most collaboration happened one conversation turn at a time. You gave it a task, it did one part. You added more context, it moved to the next part.
That works well for short tasks.
But when a task becomes longer, such as organizing a repo, doing a cross-file refactor, tracking down a chain of test failures, or asking an agent to keep moving toward a product goal, relying only on each prompt can easily make the work drift.
/goal is trying to solve that problem.
/goal Is Not Enabled by Default
This is the first thing to mention, because it is easy to miss.
Even if you have already updated Codex CLI, it does not mean you will see /goal as soon as you open Codex. Right now, /goal is still an experimental feature, and it is disabled by default.
At the time I am writing this, the latest npm version is 0.129.0. In this version, codex features list shows:
goals experimental false
That means the feature exists, but it is not enabled.
To enable it, run:
codex features enable goals
After that, ~/.codex/config.toml will include:
[features]
goals = true
Then restart Codex CLI, and you can use /goal.
If you only want to try it temporarily, you can also use:
codex --enable goals
You do not have to run all of this manually. You can ask an AI agent such as Codex App, Claude App, or Claude Code to do it for you. You only need to give it one prompt.
Enable the goals feature in codex cli so I can use /goal.
The Version Needs to Be 0.128.0 or Later
Another thing to watch is the version.
/goal is not available in every Codex CLI version. OpenAI added the persisted /goal workflow in the Codex CLI 0.128.0 release note, including TUI controls for create, pause, resume, and clear. In the 0.129.0 release note, goals were marked experimental, with improvements to discoverability, keeping goals paused after resume, validation, and duration display.
In the Codex App, Open the Terminal Area and Use Codex CLI
In the Codex app, you can use the terminal directly. The shortcut is Cmd + J, which opens the terminal area. From there, enter the codex command, and you can move into the Codex CLI environment.