Auth problems with Nightwatch MCP and Codex App

[jhull]

Boost Version

2.1.7

Laravel Version

12.52.0

Agent/IDE Name & Version

OpenAI Codex (v0.104.0)

PHP Version

8.4

System Info

macOS Tahoe 26.3 M4 Macbook Pro - Herd

Description

Cannot get new Nightwatch MCP to reliably connect to Codex through MCP (boost, herd, linear, etc. work fine). Sometimes it says it has auth problems, other times it says it's a streaming issue. In the steps to Reproduce I show specific errors showing up pre-auth (403) and post-auth (handshaking).

Steps To Reproduce

Open up Codex through CLI - first thing you see:

MCP client for `nightwatch` failed to start: MCP startup failed: handshaking with MCP server
  failed: Send message error Transport
  [rmcp::transport::worker::WorkerTransport<rmcp::transport::streamable_http_client::StreamableHttp
  ClientWorker<rmcp::transport::auth::AuthClient<reqwest::async_impl::client::Client>>>] error:
  Client error: HTTP status client error (403 Forbidden) for url (https://nightwatch.laravel.com/
  mcp), when send initialize request

⚠ MCP startup incomplete (failed: nightwatch)

After authorization (again) we get:

MCP client for `nightwatch` failed to start: MCP startup failed: handshaking with MCP server
  failed: Send message error Transport
  [rmcp::transport::worker::WorkerTransport<rmcp::transport::streamable_http_client::StreamableHttp
  ClientWorker<rmcp::transport::auth::AuthClient<reqwest::async_impl::client::Client>>>] error:
  Client error: error decoding response body, when send initialize request

⚠ MCP startup incomplete (failed: nightwatch)

[jessarcher]

Hi @jhull,

It sounds like Codex doesn't detect that auth is required to automatically trigger the login flow.

I suspect running codex mcp login nightwatch would get things working, but that's annoying for folks to have to run manually after running Boost.

An alternative would be to use mcp-remote like we do for some of the other agents, which would change your config from:

[mcp_servers.nightwatch]
url = "https://nightwatch.laravel.com/mcp"

To:

[mcp_servers.nightwatch]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://nightwatch.laravel.com/mcp"]

Can you let me know whether the latter works and I'll update the installer.

[jhull]

Not sure where to leave word about this - but its still not working. Tried php artisan boost:update, tried php artisan boost:install - still takes me to the flow to authorize in the browser for Nightwatch but when i come back into Codex app i get this:

⚠ MCP client for `nightwatch` failed to start: MCP startup failed: handshaking with MCP server
  failed: Send message error Transport
  [rmcp::transport::worker::WorkerTransport<rmcp::transport::streamable_http_client::StreamableHttp
  ClientWorker<rmcp::transport::auth::AuthClient<reqwest::async_impl::client::Client>>>] error:
  Client error: error decoding response body, when send initialize request

⚠ MCP startup incomplete (failed: nightwatch)

I tried your fix above - but all it did was completely crash Codex altogether - couldn't open from command line, no longer functional in the app (other repos without Nightwatch MCP worked fine). When i made your change above, the error in the cli was:

Error loading config.toml: url is not supported for stdio
in `mcp_servers.nightwatch`

I ended up having to pull it out altogether.

Would really love to get this working - so hopefully you can help figure it out - thanks!

[pushpak1300]

Hey @jhull,

I tried it with my local Codex setup and it worked 👍

Just make sure you follow these steps:

• Update Codex to the latest version
• Update Boost to the latest version: composer update laravel/boost -W
• Delete the Codex MCP config file, then run: php artisan boost:install
• After running, you should be prompted to log in via the browser and it should work

If you are not prompted, run: codex mcp login nightwatch

[jhull]

Welp, that did it. Thanks!!!!