OpenAI to acquire developer tooling startup Astral in boost for Codex team

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit on March 11, 2026 in Washington, DC.OpenAI on Thursday announced it's acquiring Astral, a small startup that builds popular open source tools for software developers. Astral's team will join OpenAI and help build out its artificial intelligence coding assistant called Codex. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition. "Through it all, though, our goal remains the same: to make programming more productive. To b ...