Disclosure: I run PickAPlugin, an independent, hand-sorted catalog of ChatGPT and Codex plugins. This checklist is adapted from our guide, and it works no matter where you found the plugin.

1. Is it alive?

Look at the last commit, the open issues, and whether the repo is archived. A plugin that hasn't been touched in a long time may still work, but you'll be on your own when something in the host app changes.

2. What does it actually run?

Open .mcp.json and any hooks.json before you install. These are the parts that execute:

• MCP servers start a process (often npx, uvx, or a binary) that your agent talks to.
• Hooks run commands on events like tool calls or session start.

If you can't tell what a command does, look it up before letting it run.

3. What does it ask for?

Tokens, filesystem access, network access. Then ask whether that matches what it says it does. A Markdown formatter that wants your GitHub token deserves a closer look.

I boil this down to three questions:

1. What can it read?
2. What can it write or send?
3. Where does my data go?

If the README can't answer those on one screen, I usually skip it.

4. Who made it?

A known company or a maintainer with a history of active projects is a better bet than a brand-new account with one repo. It's not proof of anything, just a signal.

5. Is there a license?

No license means you technically can't reuse the code. It also tells you how much thought went into publishing it.

6. Is the manifest sane?

Check plugin.json for absolute paths, hardcoded secrets, or fields pointing somewhere unexpected. Those are red flags. We built a free plugin.json validator that catches the common problems in the browser.

What about official plugins?

Plugins in the built-in directory are curated by OpenAI, which is a real signal. It's still worth knowing what you're connecting, especially anything that touches email, files, or deploys.

The short version

Alive, what it runs, what it asks for, who made it, license, manifest. Two minutes, and you'll skip most of the sketchy stuff. The full checklist lives at pickaplugin.com/guides/vet-a-plugin.

What's on your own checklist? I'd like to hear what I'm missing.

Same servers, different wrapper

Claude Desktop and Cursor keep MCP servers in JSON. Codex keeps them in TOML, in ~/.codex/config.toml (or .codex/config.toml inside a trusted project). The servers themselves don't change at all. Only the config format does.

Here's a server in Claude's JSON:

{"mcpServers": {
  "context7": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp"]
  }
}}

And the same server in Codex's TOML:

[mcp_servers.context7]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp"]

Each server becomes its own [mcp_servers.NAME] table. The CLI and the IDE extension both read the same file.

Things that bit me

• env becomes an inline table. So "env": {"API_KEY": "..."} turns into env = { API_KEY = "..." }.
• Remote servers use url. Put any headers in http_headers.
• Keep tokens out of the file. For remote servers, bearer_token_env_var points Codex at an environment variable instead of pasting the token into config.toml.
• You don't have to touch the server. Local stdio servers run the same command everywhere.

Or skip the file and use the CLI

codex mcp add context7 -- npx -y @upstash/context7-mcp
codex mcp list

Where the old config lives

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

If you have a lot of them

Converting one or two by hand is fine. If you've got ten, I put a paste-and-convert page here: MCP config converter. It runs in your browser and nothing gets uploaded. It goes the other way too, TOML back to JSON.

The longer version of this guide is on pickaplugin.com.

1. name has to be kebab-case. My Plugin won't work, my-plugin will.
2. Only plugin.json goes in .codex-plugin/. Skills, .mcp.json and hooks go at the plugin root.
3. Paths start with ./. No /Users/you/..., no ...
4. In a marketplace.json, every entry needs a source (and you'll want a policy).
5. When you add a repo with codex plugin marketplace add, give it the repo, not the raw marketplace.json URL. Otherwise you get a 404.

Free in-browser checker if you want it: https://pickaplugin.com/tools/plugin-json-validator