Codex 0.161 defaults to GPT-6.1 Sol and signs in to MCP servers

Signing in to a new MCP server used to mean leaving the terminal, pasting an OAuth URL into a browser and copying a token back. Codex 0.161 adds /mcp login <name>, a TUI command that runs the whole flow inside the active session. The release carries three other changes a Codex team will see on the next turn.

GPT-6.1 Sol is the default model

The release notes say GPT-6.1 Sol is now the default model in both the bundled catalog and the Amazon Bedrock catalog. A Codex install that never set model in its config will route to Sol on the next turn. OpenAI's own documentation puts GPT-6.1 Sol at a fifth of GPT-6 Astra's input price and a tenth of its cached-input price, and independent tests by Jessica Wachtel at The New Stack found the two models tied for accuracy across three real engineering tasks with Sol at 18 percent of Astra's cost.

MCP sign-in from the terminal

/mcp login <name> is the new TUI command. The release notes present it as a convenience command for MCP server authentication from an active terminal session, so the OAuth handshake runs inside the chat view rather than through a side channel. The same release carries related MCP work in the changelog: enterprise MCP sign-in with account-scoped grant cleanup, attributed OAuth credential storage telemetry, and a stricter config refresh that fails closed on an enterprise MCP auth change.

Bedrock multi-agent V2, Ultra reasoning and GovCloud

Amazon Bedrock gets multi-agent V2 and Ultra reasoning on compatible models, and Bedrock Mantle now accepts AWS GovCloud regions. A public-sector or regulated workload that was blocked from Codex because Bedrock could not route to GovCloud can now run. GPT-6.1 Sol is added to the Bedrock catalog alongside the bundled catalog, and the Bedrock GPT-6 Sol catalog tests now expect multi-agent V2 by default.

Daybreak is opt-in, by name

Daybreak features are now gated behind --enable cli_daybreak or features.cli_daybreak=true. Setting daybreak=true on its own is insufficient. With the flag off, controls and indicators stay hidden, /daybreak is unavailable and automatic Cyber routing is omitted even for saved Daybreak threads, while saved preferences remain intact. Opt-in routing needs an eligible ChatGPT sign-in, the OpenAI provider and advertised model and program support. codex exec --cyber-access-program and the TypeScript SDK's cyberAccessProgram option select a Cyber access program per turn, and the explicit exec override still works with cli_daybreak disabled without changing the saved choice.

Fixes worth reading

Approved filesystem escalation can now grant broader write access while preserving denied reads and network restrictions, and background tasks keep their originating turn's permissions. Explicit launch permissions survive terminal reconnects and new sessions, and implicit client settings no longer overwrite server or saved-thread web-search settings. Thread resume now includes the latest committed history, startup detects recoverable SQLite corruption earlier, and Enter correctly submits buffered input after paste detection expires, including in Vim insert mode.

A Codex team that already pinned model to Astra keeps the same model and pays the same price. Everyone else is on Sol starting now, and the MCP work means a new server costs one line in a chat window instead of a browser round trip. For public-sector teams, Bedrock in GovCloud opens Codex to workloads that had no path to it before.

Source

Primary source: openai/codex release rust-v0.161.0 on GitHub.