Hello OpenAI team,
I would like to suggest a feature for Codex and ChatGPT agent workflows:
Allow users to securely connect their own APIs and personal service connectors to ChatGPT/Codex, so the agent can work across the user’s real tools with strict permissions, approval gates, budgets, and audit logs.
Today, developers can use the OpenAI API inside their own applications. I am suggesting the reverse direction as well:
The user should be able to give ChatGPT/Codex controlled access to selected user-owned APIs and services, so ChatGPT/Codex can act as a safe personal operations layer.
Examples:
1. Google Workspace
- Read selected Google Drive folders
- Summarize Google Docs
- Extract deadlines from Gmail
- Add approved events to Google Calendar
- Create a study or project plan based on files, emails, and calendar availability
2. Notion
- Read selected databases
- Find overdue tasks
- Create project summaries from Notion pages
- Update task status after user approval
- Connect notes, tasks, and project documents into one workflow
3. GitHub / Codex workflow
- Read issues and pull requests
- Generate a prioritized Codex task list
- Connect repository state with project documentation
- Update issue checklists after approved Codex work
- Summarize what changed across commits, issues, and docs
4. User-owned backend APIs
- Check app status
- Read logs
- Trigger safe maintenance tasks
- Check local or cloud job status
- Report failures from custom developer tools
- Query a private dashboard and summarize the result
5. OpenAI API orchestration
- Let ChatGPT use the user’s own OpenAI API budget through a secure gateway
- Use smaller API calls as sub-agents for summarization, classification, validation, dataset cleanup, and code review
- Apply budget limits, allowed model lists, max calls per task, and approval thresholds
- Example: “Validate this dataset using my API budget, but stop if estimated cost passes $2.”
6. Desktop or local automation bridge
- Allow ChatGPT/Codex to call a user-approved local bridge for desktop automation
- Example: inspect a project folder and summarize the structure
- Example: prepare a script for an editing or development tool, but ask before changing files
- Example: check a build folder, summarize errors, and suggest the next Codex task
7. Finance dashboards
- Read-only portfolio or transaction analysis
- Risk summaries
- Spending summaries
- No default trading permissions
- Any real financial action should require explicit multi-step confirmation
Important safety requirements:
- Users should not paste API keys directly into chat
- Connections should use OAuth or a secure user-owned gateway
- Every connector should support granular permissions:
-
read-only
-
write with approval
-
limited write scope
-
selected folders/databases/repositories only
-
daily cost or usage budget
- Dangerous actions must require confirmation:
-
deleting files
-
sending emails
-
changing permissions
-
making purchases
-
placing financial trades
-
modifying production systems
- Every action should create an audit log:
-
user request
-
selected tool/API
-
parameters
-
result
-
timestamp
- Rollback or undo should be supported when possible
- The user should always be able to disable a connector instantly
Why this would be valuable:
This would turn ChatGPT/Codex from a conversation interface into a secure personal operations layer for real workflows.
It would help:
- students manage school files, deadlines, notes, and study plans
- developers coordinate GitHub, docs, local builds, Codex tasks, and logs
- creators manage scripts, assets, editing workflows, and publishing tasks
- small businesses coordinate Google Workspace, Notion, finance dashboards, and internal APIs
- advanced users build safe automation workflows across their own tools
This would also make Codex much more powerful because Codex could work not only inside a codebase, but across the surrounding developer workflow: issues, docs, calendars, local tools, custom APIs, and project trackers.
The key idea is not unlimited control.
The key idea is safe delegated control:
ChatGPT/Codex plans the work, the user approves risky actions, controlled APIs execute the task, and every action is logged.
In short:
Please consider allowing users to connect secure, permission-scoped APIs and personal service connectors to ChatGPT/Codex, so it can safely operate across the user’s own tools and workflows.
Thank you.