From d25a9822a75a04b9c5552530381cf93f3f768fa5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Eric Traut <etraut@openai.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:03:21 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Do not fail thread start when trust persistence fails
 (#17595)

Addresses #17593

Problem: A regression introduced in
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/16492 made thread/start fail when
Codex could not persist trusted project state, which crashes startup for
users with read-only config.toml.

Solution: Treat trusted project persistence as best effort and keep the
current thread's config trusted in memory when writing config.toml
fails.
---
 .../app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs | 52 +++++++++++++------
 1 file changed, 35 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)

diff --git a/codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs b/codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs
index 6762b9e12..dd980c571 100644
--- a/codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs
+++ b/codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs
@@ -213,6 +213,7 @@ use codex_core::config_loader::CloudRequirementsLoadErrorCode;
 use codex_core::config_loader::CloudRequirementsLoader;
 use codex_core::config_loader::LoaderOverrides;
 use codex_core::config_loader::load_config_layers_state;
+use codex_core::config_loader::project_trust_key;
 use codex_core::exec::ExecCapturePolicy;
 use codex_core::exec::ExecExpiration;
 use codex_core::exec::ExecParams;
@@ -2291,25 +2292,42 @@ impl CodexMessageProcessor {
         {
             let trust_target = resolve_root_git_project_for_trust(config.cwd.as_path())
                 .unwrap_or_else(|| config.cwd.to_path_buf());
-            if let Err(err) = codex_core::config::set_project_trust_level(
-                &listener_task_context.codex_home,
-                trust_target.as_path(),
-                TrustLevel::Trusted,
-            ) {
-                let error = JSONRPCErrorError {
-                    code: INTERNAL_ERROR_CODE,
-                    message: format!("failed to persist trusted project state: {err}"),
-                    data: None,
-                };
-                listener_task_context
-                    .outgoing
-                    .send_error(request_id, error)
-                    .await;
-                return;
-            }
+            let cli_overrides_with_trust;
+            let cli_overrides_for_reload = if let Err(err) =
+                codex_core::config::set_project_trust_level(
+                    &listener_task_context.codex_home,
+                    trust_target.as_path(),
+                    TrustLevel::Trusted,
+                ) {
+                warn!(
+                    "failed to persist trusted project state for {}; continuing with in-memory trust for this thread: {err}",
+                    trust_target.display()
+                );
+                let mut project = toml::map::Map::new();
+                project.insert(
+                    "trust_level".to_string(),
+                    TomlValue::String("trusted".to_string()),
+                );
+                let mut projects = toml::map::Map::new();
+                projects.insert(
+                    project_trust_key(trust_target.as_path()),
+                    TomlValue::Table(project),
+                );
+                cli_overrides_with_trust = cli_overrides
+                    .iter()
+                    .cloned()
+                    .chain(std::iter::once((
+                        "projects".to_string(),
+                        TomlValue::Table(projects),
+                    )))
+                    .collect::<Vec<_>>();
+                cli_overrides_with_trust.as_slice()
+            } else {
+                &cli_overrides
+            };
 
             config = match derive_config_from_params(
-                &cli_overrides,
+                cli_overrides_for_reload,
                 config_overrides,
                 typesafe_overrides,
                 &cloud_requirements,