VoiceCodex is a JetBrains plugin running inside WebStorm that turns the IDE into a hands-free conversational coding partner. You just talk naturally, keep your hands off the keyboard, and watch Codex do the work inside your IDE.
Coding with an agent still usually means staying glued to the keyboard: typing prompts, watching logs, copying context, and checking what changed. VoiceCodex makes Codex feel like a teammate inside the IDE. You can talk naturally, ask side questions while work is running, and see the actual file changes appear in WebStorm.
VoiceCodex was built as part of the JetBrains x OpenAI Hackathon, held April 18-19, 2026 in San Francisco. The event had 39 submitted projects in the project gallery and about 350 registered participants. The project received strong feedback from judges during private judging, though it was not selected as one of the top 6 projects invited to present on stage. Watch the hackathon submission demo.
VoiceCodex was designed around side questions that do not interrupt the main execution, making it an early implementation of the interaction pattern later shown in OpenAI's Realtime agent demo.
- OpenAI Realtime listens to the user, interprets intent, answers conversationally, and decides when coding work should be sent to Codex.
- Codex app-server reads files, edits code, runs commands, and reports progress back to the voice interface.
- React and Vite power the embedded command center UI shown inside the JetBrains tool window.
- JetBrains plugin shell hosts the web app inside WebStorm and can open files, show diffs, and control IDE state.
- Structured orchestration keeps normal conversation, active coding tasks, steering, and interruptions separate.
- pnpm is used for local development:
pnpm install,pnpm dev, andpnpm build.