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)

1. --token argument (CLI only)
2. CODEX_IMAGE_TOKEN environment variable
3. --token-file argument (CLI only)
4. ~/.chatgpt_auth.json cache (valid for 8 hours)
5. Auto login flow — fetches from https://chatgpt.com/api/auth/session via minis-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

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

1. Token: auto-resolved via get_auth.py:
   • Already cached → use directly
   • Already logged in (browser session) → extract immediately
   • Not logged in → minis-open pops the ChatGPT login page to the user in foreground, then polls every 10s (up to 5 min) until login is detected
2. Construct the prompt from the user's request.
3. Run scripts/codex_image.py with appropriate arguments.
4. 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.