I Gave Codex a 24/7 Server. Now It Codes While I Sleep.

[00:00] I'm willing to bet that you've probably seen

[00:03] Someone walking around with their laptop screen

[00:06] and you know that if they're a programmer,

[00:10] I know that this has been me many times.

[00:12] Even the other day at the airport,

[00:13] I was walking around with my laptop screen open,

[00:17] because I needed my Claude code or codex

[00:21] Now, this is a problem that doesn't need to exist

[00:24] because you can actually run agents in the cloud

[00:28] And that's

[00:30] I'm going to show you how we can set up Codex

[00:34] So we never need to have our laptop screen half open

[00:40] So effectively, what I'm going to show you in

[00:44] agent decoding tasks in the cloud, self-hosted

[00:50] This means that you can be on the go, and then you

[00:54] You can reconnect to it from your laptop,

[00:57] that if that screen closes,

[01:01] Which means if you're sleeping

[01:05] where you just can't open your laptop,

[01:09] and you can actually run them on a schedule,

[01:12] Now for this video, we're going to use Codex.

[01:13] The reason for this is the Codex.

[01:15] In my opinion, is currently the best agent out there.

[01:18] Specifically, we're going to be using Codex CLI.

[01:20] This is something that can run

[01:23] and that we can execute from our phone,

[01:26] Now, Codex is currently leading

[01:29] It can actually run faster than cloud code

[01:32] is significantly cheaper to use,

[01:36] In terms of the usage that you get, it's

[01:40] you know, in 20 different sessions, 24 seven.

[01:43] So I promise we'll get into the set up.

[01:44] But I just want to emphasize why this is worth doing.

[01:47] Now, if you're going to run a coding agent

[01:50] you know, like cloud code or codex CLI

[01:54] You do need your computer to be open, and that's

[01:59] or your compute to actually run a terminal command

[02:04] then this is fine in many situations

[02:07] on the computer, you're working on something,

[02:11] and every prompt you give is taking,

[02:14] However, if you want to do a task

[02:17] or you want to run a task every day

[02:21] for a super long period of time,

[02:24] have your computer open,

[02:27] Obviously, this doesn't work,

[02:31] if you lose internet, if you do this battery,

[02:34] if for some reason it turns off or restarts

[02:37] you're going to lose all of that progress,

[02:41] So the solution here is to have a VPN or virtual

[02:45] private server

[02:48] It doesn't mean you're not going to run stuff

[02:51] when you want to do something,

[02:53] or you know that it's not going to be available

[02:57] Whatever you delegated to the VP.

[02:59] So the basic idea is, in this video,

[03:03] how to install codecs, CLI on it and authenticate

[03:07] and then how you can control it from your phone

[03:11] You can delegate those long running tasks

[03:15] handled securely,

[03:18] This way, any time you need something

[03:21] you want to run something on a schedule,

[03:22] do it all the VPNs and then the active work

[03:25] You separate things out.

[03:27] Now there's three main reasons why this works.

[03:29] First, a virtual private server doesn't go to sleep.

[03:31] It's available 24 over seven in a secure environment

[03:36] Just doesn't go out.

[03:37] You keep all of the data

[03:40] and you can keep everything in a secure environment.

[03:42] And importantly, you also have data center speeds.

[03:44] So if you're going to be in a low

[03:48] when I'm traveling,

[03:51] and get significantly faster speeds

[03:54] getting a data set, training a model,

[03:57] So anyways, that is kind of the quick brief here

[04:01] Now let me show you exactly how to do it.

[04:04] Now, the first thing we're going to need

[04:07] But you can get any that you want.

[04:09] But for this video, I'm going to be using Hostinger

[04:13] servers on the market.

[04:14] They're the most reliable

[04:17] Meaning I can give you guys an additional discount.

[04:19] So I would recommend going with the KVM two plan

[04:23] Here you can see all of the options they have.

[04:25] I'll leave a link to this in the description.

[04:27] I'm going to go with KVM two.

[04:29] And then from here what I'm going to do

[04:32] Now because I have a partnership with Hostinger.

[04:34] If you go here and apply to code tech with Tim,

[04:38] using a 12 month or 24 month subscription plan here,

[04:42] So regardless, pick your plan, pick the duration

[04:46] You can choose the region

[04:48] in my case, Indonesia,

[04:51] And then you can choose OpenAI Codex,

[04:55] and install some of the dependencies for you,

[04:58] Hostinger also has a lot of other one

[05:02] But of course for this video we need Codex,

[05:06] Continue.

[05:07] Now if you're following along with me here, it may

[05:11] If it does that you can just generate a random one

[05:14] Obviously save it

[05:17] I will delete this server afterwards.

[05:18] So I'm going to go ahead and press on.

[05:20] Next I'm going to add the malware scanner

[05:24] to have on the VPNs and then press finish.

[05:26] And it's going to take a minute

[05:29] Once it's done, I'll be right back.

[05:30] I'll show you how we can connect to it,

[05:33] Okay.

[05:34] So MVP's is now deployed,

[05:36] and what I can do is go to the dashboard here

[05:40] And you can see that I have Codex deployed.

[05:42] Now at this point I'm going to assume

[05:45] Whether you're using hosting or not,

[05:47] What we're going to need to do,

[05:51] so we can SSH into it and start configuring

[05:55] And before we start setting up scheduled tasks,

[05:59] So what I'm going to do is just copy this right here,

[06:03] And also

[06:06] If you forgot it you can change it right here.

[06:08] And what I'm going to do is open up a terminal.

[06:10] So you can see

[06:12] Here.

[06:12] Let me just clear this

[06:15] So you guys can see it.

[06:16] And we're going to paste the command ssh root at.

[06:19] And then the IP address of our server.

[06:21] Again if you're using a different provider

[06:25] You get the username which is typically root.

[06:27] And then you know the password for signing it.

[06:29] So let's go ahead and press on enter.

[06:31] We're going to go yes.

[06:32] And just say okay we can connect to this host.

[06:34] And then we're going to paste in our password.

[06:37] When you paste the password

[06:39] It will be invisible.

[06:40] So just paste it and then press enter okay.

[06:42] So you can see that

[06:45] You'll see that if you see root add

[06:48] In this case it's SRB that just would host or name.

[06:51] So now what we need to do is just verify

[06:54] If it's not I'll show you how to install it.

[06:55] In case you didn't use the one click

[06:58] to sign in with our accounts

[07:03] or we can use an API key if we want,

[07:06] Then after that, I'm going to show you a few quick

[07:11] Then we're going to connect it

[07:13] And I'll show you overall how this works.

[07:15] Automations all of that kind of fun stuff okay.

[07:17] So first things first

[07:21] Now again, if you use the one click

[07:24] it should automatically be installed for you.

[07:26] But if it's not, what you're going to want to do

[07:28] I'll leave this link in the description.

[07:30] It's just the docs from Codex,

[07:34] So there's a curl.

[07:35] You can just copy this, paste this

[07:39] And that will install the Codex CLI for you.

[07:42] Once it's installed you may need to just reconnect

[07:47] because sometimes the path variable

[07:50] I'm not going to talk about that too much in depth,

[07:52] but if you install it in the codex

[07:55] So just close it and re ssh back in

[07:58] So from here

[08:01] From here

[08:04] Or if you have your own API key you can use this.

[08:06] But it's probably going to be better

[08:10] So I'm gonna go sign in with device code.

[08:11] And what it's going to say is go to this link okay.

[08:14] So we're going to copy this

[08:17] And then we're going to paste this code

[08:20] So let's copy this.

[08:21] Go back okay.

[08:22] We're use my email here

[08:26] And that should allow us to be signed in case

[08:31] So from here it says that we're signed in now

[08:35] Enter from here. We're just going to go.

[08:37] Yes. Continue. That's fine.

[08:38] And you'll see that we've now opened up Codex

[08:42] so we can say, you know, hello world

[08:46] Now I'm not going to give you a full tutorial

[08:48] There's a lot of different slash commands

[08:51] I'd recommend triggering the fast mode here.

[08:53] Even though it's going to use more usage.

[08:55] It's going to run a lot faster,

[08:58] there's a lot of other stuff that you can run

[09:02] Okay, so Codex is now working.

[09:03] We have it running on our computer if we want to exit

[09:09] That should quit out of Codex.

[09:11] And we can type clear just to clear

[09:13] So we can have kind of a fresh screen.

[09:15] Now what I want to do next is I want to show

[09:19] because it's going to be very useful

[09:22] so that it can create repositories

[09:27] So if you don't already, I would suggest

[09:32] You can do that just by going to GitHub.com.

[09:33] You don't need to pay for anything.

[09:35] And then what we're going to do is the following.

[09:37] So first we're going to go to our little avatar here.

[09:40] And we're going to go to settings.

[09:41] Now from settings we're going to scroll

[09:45] And we're going to create an API key that we can use

[09:48] in our virtual private server

[09:52] You can actually even give Codex

[09:54] if you want, but I like to connect it to mine

[09:58] So what I'm going to do is go to personal access

[10:01] and go to fine

[10:04] I'm going to go create new token.

[10:06] And what I'm going to do here is just name this.

[10:08] What are we doing here? You know, Codex.

[10:11] Okay.

[10:12] For the exploration, I'm just going to go.

[10:13] No exploration, so we don't need to change it.

[10:15] I'm going to go all repositories

[10:19] And I'm going to start setting the permissions

[10:22] Now, if I want this to have the ability

[10:24] to create and delete repositories,

[10:27] And if I want it to be able to edit

[10:30] So make a commit or view it.

[10:32] I need to add contents.

[10:34] Also, I want it to be able to make pull requests.

[10:35] I need to add pull request.

[10:37] So there's a lot of things here.

[10:37] But for most of you, you're

[10:41] For all of these,

[10:44] Be careful.

[10:45] But what this is going to do

[10:45] is allow it to create a read delete

[10:50] This will allow it to create content,

[10:54] and then for pull requests this will allow it to pull

[10:58] Now this is one you might want to be careful with

[11:01] it can delete repos.

[11:02] So if you just want to test it to start,

[11:06] But if you want it to be able

[11:07] to make new repos for you and stuff,

[11:11] Okay, so from here we're going to generate token,

[11:15] after we install a tool called

[11:19] This is essentially a GitHub tool that Codex

[11:25] Let me show you how it works.

[11:26] Okay, so from our terminal we're going

[11:31] Okay. So exactly like I have on screen.

[11:33] And go ahead and press on enter.

[11:35] It's going to install g h which is GitHub effectively

[11:39] If we want to test if this is working we can run g h.

[11:42] Now after that we're going to type g h.

[11:44] And then I believe the command is not log in.

[11:46] It might be like okay, so start

[11:49] off and then log in okay.

[11:52] And then what we're going to do

[11:54] So to do this we're going to press GitHub.com https.

[11:58] And then we're going to use our git credentials okay.

[12:00] And we're going to paste in authentication token.

[12:02] So then what we're going to do is go back here.

[12:04] We're going to generate this token.

[12:06] Make sure you don't share it with anyone.

[12:07] And we're just going to paste it inside of here okay.

[12:09] So we're going to paste our authentication token

[12:13] Now you'll see it's logged in.

[12:14] You can see I'm logged in as tech with Tim.

[12:16] So now that I'm logged in my Codex should have

[12:21] And if we just want to test

[12:25] And we can just tell it,

[12:28] h command

[12:32] Can you just tell me a few repos

[12:34] Just to verify that the GitHub command is working?

[12:38] And by the way,

[12:38] if you're wondering what I'm using to dictate here,

[12:42] It's free to use.

[12:43] I have a long term partnership with them,

[12:45] In the description

[12:48] and is the best voice dictation

[12:51] It actually has some really cool insights now

[12:54] The streaks. Very cool, very good.

[12:56] And you can see that I can speak at 260 words

[13:00] as opposed to my normal typing speed,

[13:03] So anyways, I'm going to go ahead and press

[13:04] on, enter here, and it's just going to go

[13:08] And let's make sure that it works okay.

[13:10] So you can see that it's giving me

[13:14] to private and public, which means this is working

[13:19] And we can move on to the next step. Okay.

[13:21] So the next thing we're going to do is trigger

[13:25] just be able to control the virtual private server

[13:30] And I'm going to walk you through how to do that.

[13:32] Now the first thing we need to do here is install

[13:37] What this is going to allow us to do

[13:41] even when we're not connected

[13:44] The reason why we're going to need this tool,

[13:48] is because if we connect

[13:51] so we say, hey Codex, go do this thing, run CLI,

[13:57] whatever was happening is going to be kind of quit

[14:01] Right.

[14:01] So what tmux will allow us to do is run

[14:05] So even if we disconnect and we're not currently

[14:09] whatever we're doing

[14:12] which is super important

[14:14] So we're just going to install tmux like this

[14:18] I'm going to quickly show you 2 or 3 commands

[14:21] And then I'm going to show you how we can set this up

[14:25] So once you have tmux installed

[14:28] Okay.

[14:29] Now when you just run tmux,

[14:34] What it's going to do

[14:37] Now, if we want to view all of the shells that are

[14:42] We can see nothing is running right now

[14:45] But then I exit out of it,

[14:48] Now what we can do instead though is we can run tmux

[14:54] So in this case I'm going to call it codecs.

[14:56] Then when we do this is going to bring us again

[15:00] Here we can run anything that we want

[15:04] And let's just say hello world.

[15:06] And now what I'm going to show you

[15:08] virtual private server session

[15:12] I can get back into the shell

[15:16] So let me show you what I mean.

[15:19] Let's reopen the terminal and re ssh back in.

[15:22] Okay. Let me just get the password.

[15:24] Okay.

[15:27] You can see the codecs is still running.

[15:30] And then what I can do is type tmux attach.

[15:32] If I just type tmux attach by default it's

[15:35] to the most recent shell which is going to be codecs.

[15:39] Now if I want to attach to a particular shell

[15:40] because you can have multiple running

[15:44] And then codecs.

[15:45] And what this is going to do

[15:48] Now again, if you're not super familiar

[15:51] you may not know why this is important, but

[15:55] so that it can be stored

[15:58] Okay, so for now, we're going to leave this shell

[16:00] running on my computer

[16:03] So I'm going to show you how we can

[16:06] So we can trigger

[16:09] So from our phone here,

[16:10] what we're going to do is go to the App Store

[16:14] Now you can use anything that you want.

[16:15] But the app that I'm going to recommend

[16:21] It's free.

[16:21] You don't need to pay for anything,

[16:25] You can do this on Android.

[16:27] If not, you're just looking for any SSH client.

[16:30] Okay, so what we're going to do is just open up

[16:33] And effectively what we're going to do

[16:38] from our phone.

[16:39] So what I can do here is press on the plus button,

[16:43] and I can start putting in this information.

[16:45] Now for the label I'm just going to call this codecs

[16:48] okay CLI

[16:49] for the IP or hostname, I'm going to use the same one

[16:53] So that's 187.77.121.81.

[16:59] If you're wondering how do you find this hostname?

[17:01] You can see it up here on my computer.

[17:02] I'll hopefully have this on the screen as well.

[17:04] It's the same thing

[17:07] And if you go back to hostinger,

[17:10] or from wherever you deployed

[17:13] If we keep going, what we'll be able to do

[17:17] This is going to be root.

[17:19] And then the password is going to be

[17:20] the same password that you used previously

[17:23] Okay. So I've got all of those details in.

[17:25] There's not really anything else

[17:28] We can just go ahead and press on enter

[17:32] And it should start connecting

[17:34] So if I press on it now it's going to say

[17:38] yes I do want to trust this.

[17:40] And then it's going to bring me right

[17:43] Now from here,

[17:45] you can see in this app

[17:48] Like, do I want it to be light.

[17:49] Do I want it to be dark?

[17:50] I think it's going to be easier for you guys

[17:54] yellow color theme.

[17:55] And we can make the text size larger as well.

[17:59] One second.

[18:00] Let me move this here. Okay.

[18:03] You can set, you know, how you want it to look.

[18:05] And then from here you can type anything

[18:09] So what we want to do now is

[18:12] session that we were running here

[18:15] And if we don't have an existing session,

[18:18] So that again, if we disconnect and reconnect,

[18:22] So what we can do is type tmux.

[18:23] And then same thing. Last,

[18:25] if we want to view what we have running we can see

[18:29] So I can do tmux okay.

[18:30] And then I'm going to go attach like that

[18:33] dash t and then codecs like so.

[18:37] And you'll see that I'm now inside of here.

[18:38] It's kind of glitching out on my computer

[18:43] But you can see that if I type hello or something,

[18:48] Now, I know it looks a little bit weird,

[18:49] and that's just because we're attached

[18:52] But you can see now that I can trigger a task,

[18:55] I can get it to do something from my mobile device.

[18:58] And then again, importantly,

[19:02] and I go back to my phone, you can see

[19:04] it's still running and it's still going to be able

[19:08] And then again, if we quit out of this.

[19:09] So let's get out of our session and let's go back in.

[19:11] You can see that it will bring us back here.

[19:13] And then if I want to just completely close

[19:18] And then if I reconnect here.

[19:20] So give this a second to reconnect.

[19:21] Same thing we can do tmux

[19:24] and then attach.

[19:25] And then we'll be back in the codec session where

[19:30] And I'm going to change the color theme here.

[19:31] So it's a little bit easier to read

[19:35] So this one looks good.

[19:36] And then we can start triggering various tasks.

[19:39] So just give you an example of something we can do

[19:41] I'm just going to paste in a URL.

[19:43] This is one of the GitHub repos I have access to.

[19:46] And I'm just going to say

[19:53] And I know I'm kind of spelling some of this wrong,

[19:55] And let's go ahead and press on, enter and let's

[20:00] So you can see that

[20:02] It's giving me all of the responses and saying which

[20:07] And now we're good to go.

[20:08] And the same thing.

[20:08] We could close it, reopen it, go on our laptop,

[20:11] Now where this is going to become super

[20:16] So I want to show you that

[20:19] But keep in mind

[20:21] you could do it from your phone as well.

[20:22] It's just easier for

[20:24] Okay, so I'm back on the computer.

[20:26] You can see I've reattached to the team like session

[20:28] where we are running from our phone,

[20:31] Now, like I mentioned,

[20:33] Automations are just things

[20:36] Now, unlike Cloud Code, Codex doesn't have any built

[20:40] in kind of scheduling feature, although I'm sure

[20:43] But if we want to set that up to run on our VPS, it's

[20:48] called a cron job, which is a huge advantage

[20:52] Now, effectively,

[20:55] to do this for us and say, hey, every day

[21:00] Maybe

[21:00] I want you to review all of the code in my code base

[21:05] Maybe I want you to review all of the PR

[21:08] Maybe I want you to write a change log of anything

[21:12] Maybe I want you to update all of the Readme files.

[21:14] Whatever. Okay.

[21:15] So what I'm going to do is just define

[21:18] I want to set up a simple automation

[21:23] I need you to create a cron job.

[21:25] This is the key term that you want to keep in mind

[21:27] Cron job

[21:30] That runs correctly on the repo

[21:33] that I just sent you above and reviews all of the PR

[21:39] to the repository that includes the status of this PR

[21:45] This is a silly automation.

[21:46] Like it doesn't really make sense to run this,

[21:49] you could do.

[21:50] I'm saying, hey, set up an automation to use Codex

[21:55] Now the way that this is going to work

[22:00] And if you run this, it's

[22:04] but it will just execute whatever you ask it to do.

[22:07] So I can say Codex Exec and then like do this thing

[22:12] so we can set up a cron job that will do that for us.

[22:15] And I'm just going to go, yes.

[22:16] And don't ask for these commands

[22:19] So effectively what it's going to do is say hey

[22:23] what's called a cron job,

[22:27] Codex Exec, which is going to trigger

[22:32] is going to go and run this task and then complete

[22:36] So you can see that it's currently creating this cron

[22:40] It asks me just to approve the command, which I did.

[22:42] And you can see now that the entry is installed

[22:46] So we're just going to tell it okay, run this.

[22:48] And again the advantage of the VP is

[22:51] So it's not going to mess up your own computer.

[22:53] If it actually makes a mistake

[22:55] It's not a huge deal.

[22:56] So just running all of these cron the

[23:01] And then we will have that automation

[23:05] So just doing a dry run now

[23:08] I'm not going to bore

[23:10] I just wanted to show you that setting up

[23:14] utilize this service

[23:17] even when you're not manually triggering

[23:20] And again, the reason

[23:21] why you want something like this is that if you want

[23:25] you just delegated to the VPCs

[23:29] Again. You could set up all these automations.

[23:31] You can have a trigger, you can set up, you know,

[23:35] Codex CLI, which is currently kind of the leading

[23:41] So that's it guys.

[23:43] If you enjoyed make sure leave a like subscribe