diff --git a/codex-rs/app-server/src/config/external_agent_config.rs b/codex-rs/app-server/src/config/external_agent_config.rs
index bf0b3576a..81eea3ec0 100644
--- a/codex-rs/app-server/src/config/external_agent_config.rs
+++ b/codex-rs/app-server/src/config/external_agent_config.rs
@@ -252,7 +252,7 @@ impl ExternalAgentConfigService {
|| self.external_agent_home.join("settings.json"),
|repo_root| repo_root.join(EXTERNAL_AGENT_DIR).join("settings.json"),
);
- let settings = read_external_settings(&source_settings)?;
+ let settings = effective_external_settings(&source_settings)?;
let target_config = repo_root.map_or_else(
|| self.codex_home.join("config.toml"),
|repo_root| repo_root.join(".codex").join("config.toml"),
@@ -569,7 +569,7 @@ impl ExternalAgentConfigService {
) -> io::Result