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Using Claude Code and Codex together on one Mac

4 min readBy The Octuo team

Plenty of people now keep both Claude Code and Codex on the same Mac. One is better at a certain kind of task, one gives a second opinion on the other's diff, or one has hit its limit for the day and the other hasn't. Installing both is easy. The hard part is getting them to work on the same project without you becoming the courier between two terminals.

Octuo demo video (90 seconds), also on YouTube.

Here is a setup that works with nothing but the two CLIs, and then where Octuo fits if you want an assistant to do the go-between work.

1. Give both agents one set of instructions

Each tool reads a project instructions file at the start of a session. Codex reads AGENTS.md. Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md, and its documentation says it can also read a repository's AGENTS.md in place of CLAUDE.md, or pull another file in with an @path import. So keep one file as the source of truth for build commands, test commands, conventions and folders nobody should touch, and point the other tool at it. Two files that drift apart are how you end up with two agents arguing with each other through your codebase.

Keep it short. Both vendors' docs recommend it: a long file uses context in every session, and OpenAI lists trimming AGENTS.md as one way to make your Codex usage last longer.

2. Give each agent its own workspace

Two agents editing the same checkout at the same time will step on each other. Give each one its own git worktree or branch, and decide up front who owns which part of the task. "Claude Code writes the migration, Codex writes the tests against the spec" is a plan. "Both of you fix the bug" is a race.

3. Hand off in writing, not from memory

When work moves from one agent to the other, the context does not move with it. Neither tool can see the other's conversation. Write a short hand-off note: the goal, what is done, what was tried and failed, the files involved, and how to check the result. Paste it into the next session or commit it next to the code. Five lines beat a fresh agent rediscovering the same dead end. Our post on writing a restart note has a template.

4. Gather results in one place

Decide where finished work lands before you start: a pull request per agent, a results file, or one running summary you keep updating. Then review the same way every time. Read the tests first, then the diff, then the agent's summary. When both agents attempted the same thing, compare their test results, not their explanations.

Where Octuo fits

Doing all of this by hand works, and for a single repo it may be all you need. It gets heavier when the coding is one step of a bigger job, or when several runs are going and you are the only one keeping track of them.

Octuo is an assistant on your Mac that does that go-between work. You describe the outcome once. Octuo briefs the Claude Code and Codex CLIs already installed and signed in on your Mac, in parallel when that helps, passes along the context each task needs, follows each run and brings the results back into one report. Long jobs keep going after the chat closes, and anything that needs your decision lands in Attention. The coding can sit next to other steps in the same job: reading pages in your browser, running a scheduled check later, or building a small tracker app on the Canvas.

A few honest limits. Octuo carries the context it hands over; it does not import each vendor's own chat history. Claude Code and Codex run under your own accounts and each service's terms, and those subscriptions are billed by their providers, separately from Octuo. Octuo doesn't change their usage limits, and we don't promise it saves you money. If all you want is a better window for juggling coding sessions, a dedicated session manager may suit you better; we compared five of them in Octuo vs Mac coding-agent managers.

If the bigger-job version sounds like your week, see what Octuo does.

FAQ

Do I need both Claude Code and Codex to use Octuo? No. Octuo works on its own with models from several providers, and you choose which one does what. If you already use Claude Code or Codex, it can hand work to them.

Can Claude Code and Codex share context directly? Not by themselves. Each session starts with its own context. A shared instructions file plus a written hand-off note is the simplest bridge. When Octuo hands work from one to the other, it passes the task context along.

Can both agents work on the same repo at once? Yes, if each has its own worktree or branch and a clear piece of the task. Merge through your normal review.

Whose accounts does Octuo use? Yours. It runs the official CLIs signed in on your Mac, under each service's terms.

Sources

The product names above belong to their owners. We have no affiliation with them.