## Summary
- distinguish expired, non-refreshable stored MCP OAuth credentials from
first-time missing credentials
- carry a typed `failureReason: "reauthenticationRequired"` on the
existing `mcpServer/startupStatus/updated` notification only when user
action is required
- keep the public MCP auth-status API unchanged and regenerate the
app-server protocol schemas and documentation
## Why
An MCP server with an expired access token and no usable refresh token
currently fails startup without giving clients a reliable, typed
recovery signal.
The existing startup-status notification is the natural place to carry
this state. Its nullable `failureReason` keeps the recovery reason
attached to the failed startup transition without adding a one-off
notification. Internally, Codex distinguishes first-time login from
reauthentication and emits the reason only when the startup error itself
requires authentication.
## User impact
App clients can prompt an existing user to reconnect an MCP server when
automatic recovery is impossible by handling a failed
`mcpServer/startupStatus/updated` notification whose `failureReason` is
`reauthenticationRequired`. Starting, ready, cancelled, unrelated
failures, and first-time setup carry no reauthentication reason.
## Companion app PR
- openai/openai#1069582
## Validation
- `just test -p codex-app-server-protocol` — 248 passed; schema fixture
tests passed
- `cargo check -p codex-app-server -p codex-tui`
- `just test -p codex-rmcp-client -p codex-mcp` — 184 passed, 2 skipped
- `just test -p codex-protocol -p codex-app-server-protocol -p
codex-mcp` — 579 passed
- `just write-app-server-schema`
- `just fmt`
## Why
MCP startup failures from spawned subagents were rendered as global
notifications, so a child thread's failure could pollute the visible
parent transcript. Routing the notification to the child exposed two
related replay problems: session refresh could discard the buffered
event, and a newly created child `ChatWidget` did not know the expected
MCP server set, which could leave its startup spinner running after
every server had settled.
MCP startup diagnostics should remain visible in the thread that owns
the startup without affecting other transcripts. The protocol also needs
to support a future app-scoped MCP lifecycle where startup is not owned
by any thread.
## Reported Behavior
The [originating Slack
report](https://openai.slack.com/archives/C08JZTV654K/p1780604538859939)
called out that using subagents could turn MCP startup failures into a
wall of yellow CLI warnings because repeated failures were not
deduplicated. The intended behavior is for those diagnostics to remain
visible once in the thread that owns the startup, without polluting the
parent transcript.
## What Changed
- add nullable `threadId` ownership to `mcpServer/startupStatus/updated`
- populate it from the app-server conversation ID for the current
thread-scoped lifecycle and regenerate the protocol schema and
TypeScript artifacts
- treat a missing or null `threadId` as app-scoped without injecting it
into the active chat transcript
- route and buffer thread-owned MCP startup notifications by thread in
the TUI
- preserve buffered MCP startup events across child session refresh
- seed expected MCP servers before replaying a thread snapshot so
startup reaches its terminal state
- suppress an identical repeated failure warning for the same server
within one startup round
The owning thread still renders the detailed failure and final `MCP
startup incomplete (...)` summary.
## How to Test
1. Configure an optional MCP server named `smoke` that exits during
initialization.
2. Launch the TUI with multi-agent support enabled.
3. Confirm the main thread's own startup failure renders one detailed
`smoke` warning and one incomplete-startup summary.
4. Spawn exactly one subagent.
5. Confirm the parent transcript does not receive the subagent's MCP
startup failure.
6. Switch to the subagent thread and confirm it contains exactly one
detailed `smoke` failure and one incomplete-startup summary.
7. Confirm the subagent's MCP startup spinner disappears and the thread
remains usable.
8. Switch between the parent and subagent and confirm the warnings
neither move nor duplicate.
Targeted tests:
- `just test -p codex-app-server-protocol`
- `just test -p codex-app-server
thread_start_emits_mcp_server_status_updated_notifications`
- `just test -p codex-tui mcp_startup`
The parent/child behavior and spinner completion were also exercised
manually in tmux. `just argument-comment-lint` was attempted but blocked
by an unrelated local Bazel LLVM empty-glob failure; touched Rust
callsites were inspected manually.
felixxia-oai ·
Felipe Coury ·
Owen Lin ·