Model Ordering

The Codex model picker does not preserve the order of provider declarations or model arrays in the opencodex configuration. Its final order comes from catalog priorities, with a deterministic alphabetical order for routed models that share the same priority.

The rule Codex applies

Codex’s models-manager sorts picker-visible catalog entries by priority in ascending order. It discards the catalog array order, so moving an entry earlier in a generated JSON array does not move it earlier in the picker. The implementation records this constraint directly in src/codex/catalog.ts:881-884.

opencodex therefore controls featured placement by assigning lower priorities, not by relying on array position. The relevant priorities are:

Catalog entry	Priority	Source
subagentModels[i]	i (0 through 4)	The featured rank map in src/codex/catalog.ts:885-896
Other routed models	5	Routed entry creation in src/codex/catalog.ts:892-896
Native GPT slugs by default	9	Native entry creation in src/codex/catalog.ts:887-890
Unselected native models while a featured list exists	At least featured.length + 100	Native catalog merge in src/codex/catalog.ts:1348-1355

The management API limits subagentModels to five entries with slice(0, 5) in src/server/management-api.ts:626-634. This matches the Codex spawn_agent surface, which advertises only the first five model overrides. Models outside those five can still remain visible in the main picker and callable by their exact id.

How ties are ordered

All ordinary routed models have priority 5, so they need a tie-breaker. Before catalog entries are built, gatherRoutedModels() sorts the routed model list by provider name and then by model id, both alphabetically (src/codex/catalog.ts:1241-1270).

This means neither of these configuration details changes the final order:

• the declaration order of keys in the providers object;
• the order of ids in a provider’s models array.

orderForSubagents() then uses a stable sort to move configured featured picks to the front in the same order as subagentModels. Non-featured models keep the provider/id alphabetical relative order established earlier (src/codex/catalog.ts:1307-1321). The featured rank is also converted to priorities 0 through 4 when entries are built, so Codex’s priority sort preserves that leading sequence.

Visibility is separate from ordering

selectedModels and disabledModels decide which routed models are exposed; they are not ordering controls. filterCatalogVisibleModels() converts both selections to Set lookups and filters the gathered list without using the arrays as ranks (src/codex/catalog.ts:1216-1237).

As a result, reordering selectedModels or disabledModels has no effect on picker position. It can only change whether a model is included.

Effective picker pattern

With a non-empty featured list, the resulting order is:

1. Models in the exact configured subagentModels order, with priorities 0 through 4.
2. All remaining routed models, ordered alphabetically by provider and then model id, at priority 5.
3. Unselected native models, pushed below the featured block during catalog merge.

Without subagentModels, routed models remain at priority 5, native GPT entries use their normal priority (normally 9 for entries built by opencodex), and the routed group remains provider/id alphabetical.

Example

Suppose subagentModels contains these five ids in this exact order:

subagentModels = [
  "gpt-5.5",
  "opencode-go/glm-5.2",
  "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6",
  "gpt-5.6-sol",
  "gpt-5.6-terra",
]

The picker begins as follows:

Picker position	Model	Priority	Why it appears there
1	gpt-5.5	0	First subagentModels selection
2	opencode-go/glm-5.2	1	Second selection, even though its provider sorts after anthropic
3	anthropic/claude-opus-4-6	2	Third selection
4	gpt-5.6-sol	3	Fourth selection
5	gpt-5.6-terra	4	Fifth selection
6	anthropic/claude-fable-5	5	First remaining routed id in provider/id alphabetical order
7 onward	Remaining routed models	5	Provider alphabetically, then model id alphabetically
After routed models	Remaining native models	featured.length + 100 or higher	Unselected natives are moved below the featured block

The first five entries are the overrides advertised to spawn_agent; the rest continue in the normal picker order.

Changing the order

The only supported way to customize leading model order is to reorder subagentModels. You can do that on the dashboard’s Sub-agents page or in the opencodex configuration. The list accepts at most five models, and its order is significant.

There is currently no general modelOrder, providerOrder, or priority-map setting in OcxConfig. The supported ordering field is subagentModels (src/types.ts:238-246); disabledModels and each provider’s selectedModels are visibility fields (src/types.ts:276-282 and src/types.ts:439-446). To change the rest of the picker order would require a code-level behavior change rather than a configuration edit.