OpenAI to strengthen its Codex coding agent through acquisition of Astral

OpenAI plans to acquire Astral, a company that specialises in high-performance tools for the Python programming language. The move comes as the ChatGPT maker aims to accelerate the growth of Codex, its coding agent for software development.

The process of building software involves much more than simply writing lines of text; developers spend a significant amount of time managing the various libraries their projects depend on and checking their work for errors.

Python has become a cornerstone of modern technology, supporting everything from backend infrastructure to advanced data science and artificial intelligence (AI).

Astral has established itself as a vital player in this ecosystem by creating tools that help developers work more efficiently. Its suite includes uv, which handles the management of software building blocks known as dependencies, and Ruff, a tool used for fast linting, the process of automatically checking code for stylistic or programming errors. Additionally, its tool ty ensures that the data used within a programme is consistent and correct.

The acquisition of Astral comes at a time when OpenAI is rapidly growing it developer platform. Since the start of this year, Codex has seen its usage increase five-fold, and it now boasts over 2 million weekly active users. By integrating Astral’s expertise, OpenAI aims to create systems that can plan changes, run technical tools, and verify results independently.

“Astral has always focused on building tools that transform how developers work with Python helping them ship better software, faster. As part of Codex, we’ll continue evolving our open source tools to push the frontier of software development,” said Charlie Marsh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Astral.

For the millions of people who use Python, this partnership suggests a future wherein AI acts as a true collaborator rather than just a basic assistant.

OpenAI said it intends to continue supporting Astral’s existing open-source products while finding ways to make them work more closely with AI agents. This deeper integration should allow Codex to interact directly with the tools that developers already use every day.

“Astral’s tools are used by millions of Python developers. By bringing their expertise and ecosystem to OpenAI, we are accelerating our vision for Codex as the agent most capable of working across the entire software developer lifecycle,” noted Thibault Sottiaux, Codex lead at OpenAI.

Once the deal closes, the Astral team will join the Codex group to begin building the next generation of AI-powered developer infrastructure.

This acquisition follows other recent expansions by OpenAI, including the purchase of Promptfoo, an AI security platform designed to help businesses identify and fix weaknesses in their AI systems.

Promptfoo's acquisition will enhance the safety and evaluation capabilities of OpenAI Frontier, a platform for creating and managing AI coworkers.

Earlier this week, OpenAI launched GPT-5.4 mini and nano models that promise to provide rapid performance and lower costs, offering alternatives to developers building high-volume applications and automated sub-agents.

These developments come a few weeks after the ChatGPT maker secured a staggering $110 billion in new investment at a pre-money valuation of $730 billion. The funding round was led by major strategic partners including Amazon, which is investing $50 billion, alongside SoftBank and NVIDIA, who are each contributing $30 billion.