Does it work? Yes. Is it as good as Cursor and Windsurf? Not quite, but it's pretty darn close, depending on the model you use. I'm lacking a few features like semantic indexing, MCP support, but I'll add them soon.
Is it redundant with codex? Yeah, probably, but it was a super fun to build, and since I wrote it I have full control over any aspect of it to adapt to weird silly corporate environment network goofiness. Also, Codex doesn't give you a puppy emoji nor does it have "Always obey the Zen of Python, even when you're not writing Python." hardcoded into the prompt.
Cute / nifty fun fact:
At a certain point while I was building code_puppy, I swapped from Windsurf to using code_puppy to build code_puppy. The agent realized that it was working on itself, and made note of it while invoking the "thinking" tool.
The puppy is unleashed!!!!