## Why
Shell snapshots are currently session-scoped even though shell and cwd
are properties of a selected turn environment. That makes snapshot
refresh depend on separate session-cwd plumbing, prevents retained
environments from retaining their snapshot work, and can make snapshot
construction use a different shell than command execution.
This follows #27955 by making the retained thread-environment service
own environment snapshot lifecycles. Session configuration remains the
requested selection state, while `ThreadEnvironments` remains the source
of successfully resolved environments.
## What changed
- Configure the shell-snapshot builder before initial environment
resolution.
- Start each local environment snapshot task when its `TurnEnvironment`
is built and retain that shared task while environment ID and cwd still
match.
- Inherit retained environment snapshots into spawned child threads.
- Carry the selected `TurnEnvironment` through shell runtimes so
snapshot construction and command execution use the same
environment-specific shell and cwd.
- Load project instructions and warm plugins/skills after initial
environment resolution.
- Continue decoding invalid UTF-8 instruction files lossily without
emitting a startup warning.
- Keep requested selections in `SessionConfiguration`; failed or
duplicate resolutions only affect the resolved environment snapshot.
## Validation
- `cargo check -p codex-core --tests`
- `just test -p codex-home instructions` (6 passed)
- Focused environment, instruction, shell-snapshot, and user-shell tests
(84 passed)
- Focused shell-snapshot, user-shell, and unified-exec tests (126
passed; two event-timing tests passed on retry)
## Why
We want to remove implicit use of `$CODEX_HOME` from `codex-core` and
make embedders responsible for supplying user-level instructions. This
also ensures user instructions load when no primary environment is
selected.
## What changed
Stacked on #27415, which makes `codex exec` surface thread-scoped
runtime warnings.
- Added `UserInstructionsProvider` to `codex-extension-api`, with
absolute source attribution and recoverable loading warnings.
- Added `codex-home` with the filesystem-backed provider for
`AGENTS.override.md` and `AGENTS.md`, preserving precedence, fallback,
trimming, lossy UTF-8 handling, and the existing uncapped global
instruction size.
- Removed global instruction loading from `Config` and require
`ThreadManager` callers to inject a provider.
- Load provider instructions once for each fresh root runtime, including
runtimes without a primary environment. Running sessions retain their
snapshot, while child agents inherit the parent snapshot without
invoking the provider.
- Keep provider instructions separate while loading project `AGENTS.md`,
then assemble the model-visible instructions with the existing ordering,
source attribution, warning, and turn-context behavior.
- Wired the Codex home provider through the CLI, app server, MCP server,
core facade, and thread-manager sample.
## Validation
- `just test -p codex-home -p codex-extension-api`
- `just test -p codex-core agents_md`
- `just test -p codex-core guardian`
- `just test -p codex-app-server
thread_start_without_selected_environment_includes_only_global_instruction_source`
- `just test -p codex-exec warning`
- `just bazel-lock-check`
pakrym-oai ·
Adam Perry @ OpenAI ·