Guides · OpenAI Codex

Get started with OpenAI Codex, then put your site live

Codex is OpenAI’s coding agent. It comes with ChatGPT and runs in the ChatGPT desktop app or in your terminal.

6 min read · Last checked 8 November 2026

What it costs

Paid to them, not to us

OpenAI says Codex is included in ChatGPT plans, including the free one for quick tasks. When we checked, Go was $8 a month, Plus $20 a month and Pro from $100 a month, in US dollars. A small website is a light job, but bigger plans give you more use.

Check the current price on the Codex pricing page (opens in a new tab)

Good to know

Before you start

Rather not use a terminal? The ChatGPT desktop app runs Codex for you. On Windows it comes from the Microsoft Store.

ChatGPT desktop app (opens in a new tab)

Set up

Install OpenAI Codex

On a Mac

  1. STEP 1

    Open Terminal

    Press Cmd + Space, type Terminal and press Return.

  2. STEP 2

    Install Codex

    Paste this and press Return.

    Terminal
    curl -fsSL https://chatgpt.com/codex/install.sh | sh
  3. STEP 3

    Make a folder and start

    Open a new Terminal window first. This makes a folder for your site and starts Codex in it.

    Terminal
    mkdir my-site && cd my-site && codex
  4. STEP 4

    Sign in

    The first time, choose Sign in with ChatGPT and log in in your browser.

On Windows

  1. STEP 1

    Open PowerShell

    Press the Windows key, type PowerShell and press Enter.

  2. STEP 2

    Install Codex

    Paste this and press Enter.

    PowerShell
    powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://chatgpt.com/codex/install.ps1 | iex"
  3. STEP 3

    Make a folder and start

    Open a new PowerShell window first. OpenAI recommends installing Git too (winget install Git.Git).

    PowerShell
    mkdir my-site; cd my-site; codex
  4. STEP 4

    Sign in

    The first time, choose Sign in with ChatGPT and log in in your browser.

Your first prompt

Ask for a website

Copy this, swap the words in [brackets] for your own, and paste it in. Read what the agent says back: it may ask you a question or two.

Not quite right? Just say what to change, the way you’d tell a person: “make the header green”, “add our opening hours”.

Prompt
Build a simple website for my business in a new folder called site.

About the business: [your business name] is a [what you do] in [your town]. We offer [two or three services]. Customers can reach us on [phone] or [email].

Make it:
- one page with a header, what we do, prices or services, a few words about us, and how to get in touch
- plain HTML and CSS (and only a little JavaScript if it's really needed), with index.html at the top of the site folder
- no scripts loaded from other websites, no contact form (use a mailto: link instead), and no embedded maps or videos
- readable on a phone, quick to load, and written in plain British English

When it's done, tell me how to open it on my computer to check it.
Put it live

Now put it on clicked.cloud

Start with a free link you can share today. When you’re happy, buy a plan and your agent moves it onto your own domain.

  1. STEP 1 · FREE, NO ACCOUNT

    Get a 7-day preview link

    Ask your agent to do it. The first time, you confirm your email by clicking a link we send you. You’ll get a link like amber-otter-4821.clickedpreview.uk that anyone can open for 7 days.

    Ask your agent
    Put the site folder on a free clicked.cloud preview. Read https://clicked.cloud/docs/previews.md and use the curl commands there. Previews need my email confirmed once: ask me for my email, request the link, then ask me to paste the preview token (pvt_…) from the page the link opens. Never print the token back. Tell me the preview link, when it expires, and the claim link.
    Or run it yourself

    Your agent is still running in the first window, so open a new Terminal or PowerShell window and go to the folder that holds site (my-site in our guides) first.

    First, once: put your own email in this command and run it. Click the link we email you, and the page shows your preview token. It works for 30 days.

    Mac · Terminal
    curl -sS -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"email":"you@example.com"}' https://clicked.cloud/api/previews/verify
    Windows · PowerShell
    Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -Uri https://clicked.cloud/api/previews/verify -ContentType 'application/json' -Body '{"email":"you@example.com"}'

    Then upload. It asks you to paste the token.

    Mac · Terminal
    read -rs "t?Paste your preview token, then press Return: " && COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar -C site -czf - . | curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $t" --data-binary @- https://clickedpreview.uk/api/previews
    Windows · PowerShell
    $t = Read-Host "Paste your preview token"
tar -C site -czf preview.tgz .
curl.exe -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $t" --data-binary "@preview.tgz" https://clickedpreview.uk/api/previews

    Previews are plain files only: no forms, no scripts from other websites, no embedded maps or videos. A page with a password box, a pop-up dialog or a popover is refused outright, so if your app has a sign-in page, skip the preview and go straight to a plan. Anything that talks to another service, like a booking system or a database, won’t work in a preview but will on a plan. Preview rules

  2. STEP 2 · KEEP IT

    Pick a plan

    Open the claim link from step 1, or see our prices. Launch is £7.99 a month for one site. You pay on Stripe; your agent never sees your card.

  3. STEP 3 · LET YOUR AGENT IN

    Add an SSH key

    An SSH key is a pair of files. The private half stays on your computer; you paste the public half into your dashboard. It lets your agent deploy to your site and nothing else.

    Ask your agent
    Use my existing ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub, or make one there (type ed25519) if I don't have one, then print the public key so I can paste it into my clicked.cloud dashboard. Never show or upload the private key.

    Then in your dashboard, open the site, choose SSH keys → Add a key, and paste the line starting ssh-ed25519. It takes about 10 minutes to start working.

  4. STEP 4 · DEPLOY

    Put it on your domain

    First, connect your agent to clicked.cloud. You sign in with your email in the browser, so there's no password or token to copy anywhere.

    Give Codex our tools with these two lines. The second opens our sign-in page in your browser: use the link we email you and click Allow.

    Terminal
    codex mcp add clicked --url https://clicked.cloud/mcp
codex mcp login clicked

    Then start Codex again in your site folder.

    Now ask your agent to deploy:

    Ask your agent
    Deploy the site folder to my clicked.cloud site with the clicked tools: site_details, then its mkdir and rsync commands, then activate_release. If you don't have the clicked tools, read https://clicked.cloud/docs/quickstart.md first. Only make the release live if the upload worked. Then check the site loads and tell me the live URL.

    On Windows: the upload uses rsync, which Windows doesn’t include. If your agent says it’s missing, ask it to set up WSL, Microsoft’s free Linux layer. Installing WSL needs an administrator account and a restart. WSL has its own home folder, so do step 3 again from inside it to give it its own SSH key. About WSL (opens in a new tab)

  5. STEP 5 · AFTER THAT

    Change it whenever you like

    Ask your agent for changes, then ask it to deploy again. Every deploy is kept, so if something looks wrong, ask it to roll back and the last version is live again.

Stuck? Email a real person at support@help.clicked.cloud.

More guides

Using something else?

Claude CodeAnthropic’s agent. Install it, describe your business, get a website.CursorAn app with an agent built in. No terminal needed to start.Lovable or BoltBuilt it in your browser? Take the code and put it on your own domain.

We checked every command and price on this page against the official pages on 8 November 2026: Codex CLI docs (opens in a new tab), Codex on Windows (opens in a new tab), Codex pricing (opens in a new tab). Names of other products belong to their owners; we’re not connected to them.