Codex CLI busy? Press Enter to steer the current turn, Tab to queue for the next one

#What changed

Nothing new shipped today, but it's an easy one to miss. When Codex CLI is in the middle of a task, there are two ways to send what you type, and they work differently. Press Enter and your message goes straight into the turn that's already running, so Codex changes course right away. Press Tab and the message waits in a queue until the current turn ends, then goes in as the next instruction. Slash commands and ! shell commands can be queued with Tab the same way; Codex only parses a queued slash command when it runs. George Hanu pointed this out on X, and OpenAI's Codex CLI docs describe the same behavior.

#Who is affected

Anyone who types follow-ups into Codex CLI while it's still working, especially on long refactors or test runs where you spot a problem mid-way.

#What to do now

Use Enter for corrections that can't wait, like 'wrong file', 'don't run that migration', or a wrong assumption. Use Tab for things that should happen after the current work, like 'update the docs afterwards' or 'then run the full test suite'. If you queue a correction with Tab, it only lands after Codex has already done the thing you wanted to stop.

#What is not confirmed

This covers the Codex CLI terminal interface. We didn't check whether the Codex IDE extension or the Codex app use the same keys. Older CLI builds from before steering became the default treated Enter as a queue, so update the CLI if Enter doesn't steer.