OpenAI has launched the Agents API in public beta, providing developers with a managed harness and infrastructure designed for building long-running, production-ready agents. This release brings the underlying technology that powers Codex to external developers, allowing them to create agents via a single API call by specifying tasks, models, tools, and environments.
The API offers flexible compute options, including OpenAI-hosted sandboxes or integrations with partners like Cloudflare and Vercel. Key features include automatic context compaction for long sessions, tool search to reduce token usage, parallel programmatic tool calling, and multi-agent support for delegating complex tasks.
OpenAI maintains the open-source Codex harness while handling infrastructure management. The API is available immediately with no additional fees beyond standard token and tool costs.