## Description
This PR adds a new `historyMode = "legacy" | "paginated"` to `Thread`.
This will be stored in `SessionMeta` in the JSONL rollout file and as a
new column in the SQLite thread_metadata table, and exposed on
`thread/start` and on the `Thread` object in app-server.
## What changed
- Added canonical `ThreadHistoryMode` with `legacy` and `paginated`,
defaulting old and new SessionMeta to `legacy`.
- Carried `history_mode` through core session config, ThreadStore stored
metadata, local/in-memory stores, rollout metadata extraction, and the
existing SQLite `threads` table.
- Added experimental `historyMode` to app-server v2 `Thread` and
`thread/start`.
- Made paginated stored threads metadata-discoverable but unsupported
for legacy full-history reads, `load_history`, live resume, and create
paths.
- Regenerated app-server schema fixtures and added
protocol/state/thread-store/app-server coverage for persistence and
fail-closed behavior.
## Compatibility floor
Because users may be running various versions of Codex binaries on the
same machine (TUI, Codex App, etc.), we will need to establish a
compatibility floor for upcoming paginated threads, which will change
how thread storage reads and writes work.
The overall plan here:
```
Release N:
- Add historyMode to SessionMeta / Thread / SQLite metadata.
- Teach binaries to understand paginated threads.
- If a binary sees `historyMode="paginated"` but does not support the paginated contract, it refuses to resume/mutate the thread.
- Default remains `"legacy"`.
Release N+1:
- First-party clients start opting into paginated threads where appropriate.
- Internal dogfood / staged rollout.
- Measure old-client usage and paginated-thread unsupported errors.
Release N+2:
- Only after Release N+ is overwhelmingly deployed, make paginated the default.
- Accept that a small tail of N-1-or-older binaries may not understand paginated threads.
```
The important behavior change is fail-closed handling for a binary that
encounters a persisted `paginated` thread before it knows how to fully
support paginated history. In app-server, if a thread is `paginated`, we
will:
- allow metadata-only discovery paths like `thread/list` and
`thread/read(includeTurns=false)`, so clients can still see the thread
and inspect its `historyMode`
- reject legacy full-history/live-thread paths like
`thread/read(includeTurns=true)` and `thread/resume` with an unsupported
JSON-RPC error
- avoid silently treating an unknown or future `historyMode` as `legacy`
Under the hood, the ThreadStore layer also rejects legacy operations
that would need to load or replay the full thread history for a
paginated thread. That gives us the behavior we want for Release N:
future paginated threads are visible, but this binary fails closed
instead of trying to operate on them as if they were legacy threads.
## Why
Helper threads such as task title generation can request a model ID that
is valid for the default OpenAI provider but unavailable from the active
provider. With Amazon Bedrock, `gpt-5.4-mini` is rejected while the
provider static catalog exposes Bedrock model IDs such as
`openai.gpt-5.5` and `openai.gpt-5.4`. This causes repeated background
404s and can surface a misleading turn error even when the main turn
succeeds.
Clients need an explicit way to ask app-server to resolve an unavailable
helper model to the active provider default. That fallback must remain
limited to providers with an authoritative static catalog so custom or
dynamically discovered model IDs are not rewritten based on an
incomplete catalog.
Fixes#28741.
## What changed
- Add the experimental `allowProviderModelFallback` option to
`thread/start`, defaulting to `false` to preserve existing behavior.
- Thread the option through thread creation and model selection.
- When enabled for a static model manager, preserve requested models
present in the catalog and replace unavailable models with the provider
default.
- Continue preserving explicit model IDs for dynamic model managers
without fetching a catalog solely to validate them.
- Document the new `thread/start` behavior in the app-server API
overview.
## Test
Temporary test-client harness:
```
ThreadStartParams {
model: Some("gpt-5.4-mini".to_string()),
allow_provider_model_fallback: true,
..Default::default()
}
```
Command:
```
CODEX_HOME=/tmp/codex-bedrock-thread-start-home \
CODEX_E2E_BEDROCK_THREAD_START_ONLY=1 \
./target/debug/codex-app-server-test-client \
--codex-bin ./target/debug/codex \
-c 'model_provider="amazon-bedrock"' \
send-message-v2 --experimental-api ignored
```
Relevant output:
```
> "method": "thread/start",
> "params": {
> "model": "gpt-5.4-mini",
> "modelProvider": null,
> "allowProviderModelFallback": true,
> ...
> }
< "result": {
< "model": "openai.gpt-5.5",
< "modelProvider": "amazon-bedrock",
< ...
< }
```
## Why
Older rollouts can retain model-visible context for a WorldState section
without having a persisted snapshot for that section. Treating the
missing snapshot as definitely absent can duplicate old context or fail
to tell the model that it was replaced or removed.
This provides a generic migration path for sections moving into
WorldState, beginning with AGENTS.md.
Builds on #29810.
## What changed
- distinguish section state that is absent, known from a persisted
snapshot, or unknown because matching legacy context remains in history
- let WorldState sections identify their own legacy fragments while
`ContextManager` owns history reconciliation and baseline persistence
- make AGENTS.md emit one conservative replacement or removal update for
legacy history, then deduplicate from the newly persisted baseline
- preserve existing environment rendering when persisted section data is
missing or malformed
## Testing
- `just test -p codex-core world_state`
- `just test -p codex-core
cold_resume_invalidates_deleted_legacy_agents_md_once -- --exact`
## Why
With deferred executors, a turn can begin before a remote environment
attaches. AGENTS.md discovery previously ran only during session setup,
so instructions from a later environment never reached the model or the
session instruction sources.
WorldState persistence has now landed, so this uses the durable
model-visible baseline directly instead of carrying a temporary
resume/fork compatibility path.
## What
- Add an `AgentsMdManager` in `SessionServices` to own host
instructions, loaded state, and refresh caching.
- When `DeferredExecutor` is enabled, refresh AGENTS.md when attached
environment selections change and freeze the result in the corresponding
`StepContext`.
- Represent AGENTS.md as a persisted WorldState section for every
session, with bounded initial, replacement, and removal updates.
- Remove duplicate AGENTS.md state and rendering from
`SessionConfiguration` and `TurnContext`.
- Build initial context, per-request updates, and compaction context
from the same step-scoped value.
- On resume and fork, compare current instructions with the restored
WorldState baseline and inject a replacement exactly once when they
differ.
Builds on #29833, #29835, and #29837.
## Tests
- Covers a remote environment becoming ready mid-turn, with AGENTS.md
appearing on the next request exactly once and updating canonical
instruction sources.
- Covers full, unchanged, replaced, and removed AGENTS.md WorldState
rendering.
- Covers changed instructions across cold resume and fork without
duplicate reinjection.
- Covers remote-v2 compaction retaining creation-time instructions in
the live session and cold resume appending one replacement when the
source changed.
- Ran focused `codex-core` AGENTS.md, WorldState, and context-update
test suites.
## Why
Ultra should be one user-facing reasoning selection for work that
benefits from both maximum reasoning and proactive multi-agent
delegation. Without it, clients must coordinate maximum reasoning with
the experimental `multiAgentMode` setting, even though the inference
backend still expects its existing `max` effort value.
This change makes reasoning effort the source of truth: clients select
`ultra`, core derives proactive multi-agent behavior when the turn is
eligible for multi-agent V2, and inference requests continue to use the
backend-compatible `max` value.
## What changed
- Add `ultra` as a first-class reasoning effort and preserve
model-catalog ordering when exposing it to clients.
- Convert `ultra` to `max` at the inference request boundary, including
Responses HTTP/WebSocket requests, startup prewarm, compaction, and
memory summarization.
- Derive effective multi-agent mode per turn from effective reasoning
effort:
- eligible multi-agent V2 + `ultra` → `proactive`
- eligible multi-agent V2 + any other effort → `explicitRequestOnly`
- V1 or otherwise ineligible sessions → no multi-agent mode instruction
- Keep the derived effective mode in turn context history so successive
turns can emit a developer-message update only when the effective mode
changes.
- Remove selected multi-agent mode from core session configuration, turn
construction, thread settings, resume/fork restoration, and subagent
spawn plumbing. Subagents inherit reasoning effort and derive their own
effective mode.
- Retain the experimental app-server `multiAgentMode` fields for wire
compatibility while marking them deprecated. Request values are accepted
but ignored; compatibility response fields report `explicitRequestOnly`.
- Display Ultra in the TUI using the order supplied by `model/list`.
## Validation
- `just test -p codex-core ultra_reasoning_uses_max_for_requests`
- `just test -p codex-tui model_reasoning_selection_popup`
## Why
Use a clearer name for what happens when this helper sets up a test
environment.
## What
- Rename the builder and its harness wrapper to use `auto_env` instead
of `remote_env` because the helper will set up a local environment if
configured by the build system.
## Why
Core tests should branch on the executor's operating system, not on
runner details such as Docker or Wine. This keeps platform behavior
stable as new test backends are added and reserves Wine-specific skips
for actual runner debt.
## What
- Add `TestTargetOs` and target/host-aware skip helpers while keeping
`TestEnvironment` internal.
- Replace topology enum access with remote predicates and a narrow
Docker accessor.
- Migrate OS-semantic Wine skips, preserve runner-specific gaps, and
document the skip taxonomy.
## Validation
- `just test -p core_test_support`
- `just test -p codex-core
remote_test_env_can_connect_and_use_filesystem`
- `bazel test //codex-rs/core:core-all-wine-exec-test
--test_output=errors` reached test execution; unrelated existing
view-image, path, and timing failures remain.
- `just test -p codex-core` and `just test` reached broad test
execution; this checkout has unrelated helper, sandbox, and timing
failures.
## Why
Downstream refactors are producing confusing code with this
functionality having a very generic name. Encoding the specific
conversion approach in the method name makes it clearer.
## What
Rename `PathUri::from_path` to `PathUri::from_host_native_path` and
update its Rust call sites.
## Why
Once multi-agent mode can be selected per turn, clients also need to
choose the initial selection when creating a thread and observe that
selection through lifecycle and settings APIs.
The selected value is intentionally distinct from the effective
model-visible value: no client selection is represented as `null`, even
though an eligible multi-agent v2 turn derives `explicitRequestOnly` as
its effective default.
## What changed
- Add the optional experimental `thread/start.multiAgentMode` parameter
and pass it through thread creation.
- Preserve an omitted initial value as an unset selection rather than
eagerly storing `explicitRequestOnly`.
- Apply an explicit `thread/start` selection to the first turn through
the session configuration established at thread creation.
- Restore the latest persisted effective mode as the selected baseline
on cold resume when rollout history contains one.
- Inherit the optional selected mode from a loaded parent when creating
related runtime threads.
- Return the current selected `multiAgentMode` from `thread/start`,
`thread/resume`, `thread/fork`, and thread settings, using `null` when
no mode is selected.
- Keep lifecycle reporting independent from model capability and feature
eligibility; core turn construction remains responsible for calculating
and persisting the effective mode.
## Not covered
- Clearing an existing loaded-session selection back to unset through
`turn/start`; omitted or `null` currently retains the session's
selection.
- A TUI control, slash command, or `config.toml` preference.
## Verification
- `CARGO_INCREMENTAL=0 just test -p codex-app-server-protocol`
- `CARGO_INCREMENTAL=0 just test -p codex-app-server multi_agent_mode`
The focused app-server coverage verifies explicit `thread/start`
initialization, first-turn prompting, nullable reporting for an omitted
selection, and retention of selections that are not currently
runtime-eligible.
## Stack
Stacked on #28685. This PR contains only the thread initialization and
lifecycle/settings API layer.
## Why
Make it possible to load AGENTS.md from remote exec-servers whose OS is
different than app-server.
## What
- keep `AGENTS.md` discovery and provenance as `PathUri`, with
root-aware parent and ancestor traversal
- expose lifecycle instruction sources as legacy app-server path strings
in events while retaining `PathUri` internally
- preserve and test mixed POSIX and Windows paths in model context and
TUI status output
- cover remote Windows loading end to end by seeding the Wine prefix
through host filesystem APIs
- fix bug in `PathUri`'s parent() implementation that would erase
Windows drive letters
## 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 exercise a linux app-server against a windows exec-server
without having to repeat every test case. This approach has slight
precedent in the remote docker test setup.
## What
Run the shared `codex-core` integration suite against Windows
exec-server behavior from Linux. This makes cross-OS path and shell
regressions visible while keeping unsupported cases owned by individual
tests.
- Add `local`, `docker`, and `wine-exec` test environment selection with
legacy Docker compatibility.
- Extend `codex_rust_crate` to generate a sharded Wine-exec variant
using a cross-built Windows server and pinned Bazel Wine/PowerShell
runtimes.
- Teach remote-aware helpers about Windows paths and track temporary
incompatibilities with source-local `skip_if_wine_exec!` calls and
follow-up reasons.
## Why
Next slice needed to make progress on the `remote_env_windows` test is
to support passing a Windows cwd for the remote environment and using
that environment's native shell. This lets the test run a real Windows
process instead of only recording an early path or shell mismatch.
## What
- change `TurnEnvironmentSelection.cwd` from `AbsolutePathBuf` to
`PathUri`
- convert local cwd values to URIs when constructing selections
- preserve a remote primary cwd instead of replacing it with the local
legacy fallback
- prefer the selected environment's discovered shell for unified exec,
falling back to the session shell when unavailable
- convert back to a host-native absolute path at current native-only
consumer boundaries
- reject or deny unsupported foreign cwd values at the existing
request-permissions boundary, with TODOs for its future migration
- extend the hermetic Wine test to execute Windows PowerShell in
`C:\windows` and verify successful process completion
- record the current app-server rejection against the same Wine-backed
remote Windows fixture when its cwd is supplied as a native Windows path
## Why
We already have the machinery to support multiple environments on a
single thread, but we only show the model the contents of `AGENTS.md`
files in the primary environment.
We should show the model all of the relevant project instructions when
we know there's more than one environment.
## Known Gaps
As discussed in the RFC, this implementation:
1. doesn't handle environments being added/removed to/from the thread
after its creation
2. it doesn't enforce an aggregate context budget across environments,
and instead applies the configured project maximum independently to each
environment
## Implementation
- Discover project instructions in environment order with an independent
byte budget per environment and preserve source provenance/order.
- Keep the legacy fragment byte-for-byte when exactly one environment
contributes project instructions; use environment-labeled sections when
two or more environments contribute.
- Freeze the complete rendered fragment in `LoadedAgentsMd`, insert it
directly into requests, and recognize both layouts in contextual and
memory filtering.
- Add exact rendering, independent-budget, source-order,
creation-snapshot, and consumer coverage without changing app-server
schemas.
## 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`
## Why
We're moving exec-server to use PathUri for its internal path
representations.
## What
Move `ExecutorFileSystem` APIs to use `PathUri` instead of
`AbsolutePathBuf`. Future changes will convert higher-level parts of
exec-server.
## Why
Global instruction behavior spans thread creation, resume, forks,
subagents, and compaction. Characterization coverage is needed before
changing those semantics so preserved history can be distinguished from
newly loaded configuration.
## What changed
- Extends the existing `agents_md` suite with fresh-thread, warning,
resume, fork, and subagent lifecycle coverage.
- Extends the existing `compact` suite with manual, mid-turn, and
remote-v2 compaction coverage.
- Asserts rendered instruction fragments, reported source paths, and
structured request history before and after instruction-file mutations.
## Intent
Follow up on #26205 by avoiding unnecessary filesystem canonicalization
during `AGENTS.md` discovery. The configured working directory is
already absolute, and canonicalization incorrectly switches symlinked
workspaces from their logical parent hierarchy to the target's
hierarchy.
## User-facing behavior
For a symlinked working directory such as:
```text
test-root/
|-- logical-repo/
| |-- AGENTS.md ("logical parent doc")
| `-- workspace ------------> physical-repo/workspace/
`-- physical-repo/
|-- AGENTS.md ("physical parent doc")
`-- workspace/
`-- AGENTS.md ("workspace doc")
```
Before this change, Codex canonicalized `logical-repo/workspace` to
`physical-repo/workspace` before discovery. It therefore loaded
`physical-repo/AGENTS.md` and `physical-repo/workspace/AGENTS.md`,
ignoring the instructions from the repository through which the user
entered the workspace.
After this change, ancestor discovery walks the configured logical path,
so Codex loads `logical-repo/AGENTS.md`. Opening
`logical-repo/workspace/AGENTS.md` still follows the symlink through the
host filesystem, so the workspace document is also loaded.
`physical-repo/AGENTS.md` is not loaded.
## Implementation
Use the logical absolute working directory when discovering project
instructions and reporting instruction sources. Filesystem reads still
follow the working-directory symlink, so an `AGENTS.md` in the target
workspace continues to load while ancestor discovery uses the symlink's
parents.
## Validation
Added integration coverage proving that discovery loads the logical
parent's instructions and the target workspace's instructions, but not
the target parent's instructions.
## Why
Workspace-specific `AGENTS.md` loading needs to use the selected
environment filesystem so remote workspaces and child agents read
instructions from their actual environment instead of the host
filesystem. The app-server should report the same instruction sources
the initialized thread actually loaded, rather than independently
rescanning configuration and filesystem state.
## What changed
- Introduce `LoadedAgentsMd` to retain ordered user, project, and
internal instructions with their provenance.
- Load and canonicalize workspace `AGENTS.md` paths through the primary
`EnvironmentManager` environment, then render the loaded instructions
when constructing turn context.
- Expose cached loaded instruction sources from initialized threads and
use them for app-server start, resume, and fork responses.
- Preserve global `CODEX_HOME` loading and separator behavior while
excluding empty project files that did not supply model-visible
instructions.
- Add integration coverage for CLI injection, selected-environment
provenance and rendering, empty environment selection, and cached
sources on loaded-thread resume.
## Validation
- `just test -p codex-core agents_md`
- `just test -p codex-core
selected_environment_sources_match_model_visible_instructions`
- `just test -p codex-exec agents_md`
- `just test -p codex-app-server instruction_sources`
- `just test -p codex-app-server --status-level fail`
## Why
The Docker remote-env coverage was failing before it reached the
behavior those tests are meant to exercise. The remote-aware test
fixture only registered the remote environment, so tests that
intentionally select both `local` and `remote` could not start a turn.
After that was fixed, two tests exposed stale fixtures: the approval
test was auto-approving under workspace-write, and the remote
`view_image` test was writing invalid PNG bytes.
## What Changed
- Added `EnvironmentManager::create_for_tests_with_local(...)` so tests
can keep the provider default while also selecting `local` explicitly.
- Updated `build_remote_aware()` to use that test-only manager when a
remote exec-server URL is present.
- Changed the remote apply-patch approval helper to use
`SandboxPolicy::new_read_only_policy()` so the test actually exercises
approval caching per environment.
- Replaced the hardcoded remote `view_image` PNG blob with the existing
`png_bytes(...)` helper so the test uses a valid image fixture.
## Validation
Ran these isolated Docker remote-env tests on the devbox with
`$remote-tests` setup:
-
`suite::remote_env::apply_patch_freeform_routes_to_selected_remote_environment`
-
`suite::remote_env::apply_patch_approvals_are_remembered_per_environment`
-
`suite::remote_env::apply_patch_intercepted_exec_command_routes_to_selected_remote_environment`
-
`suite::remote_env::exec_command_routes_to_selected_remote_environment`
- `suite::view_image::view_image_routes_to_selected_remote_environment`
All five pass.
## Summary
- make AGENTS.md discovery and loading fully FS-aware and remove the
non-FS discover helper
- migrate remote-aware codex-core tests to use TestEnv workspace setup
instead of syncing a local workspace copy
- add AGENTS.md corner-case coverage, including directory fallbacks and
remote-aware integration coverage
## Testing
- cargo test -p codex-core project_doc -- --nocapture
- cargo test -p codex-core hierarchical_agents -- --nocapture
- cargo test -p codex-core agents_md -- --nocapture
- cargo test -p codex-tui status -- --nocapture
- cargo test -p codex-tui-app-server status -- --nocapture
- just fix
- just fmt
- just bazel-lock-update
- just bazel-lock-check
- just argument-comment-lint
- remote Linux executor tests in progress via scripts/test-remote-env.sh
Owen Lin ·
Celia Chen ·
sayan-oai ·
Shijie Rao ·
Adam Perry @ OpenAI ·
Gabriel Peal ·
pakrym-oai ·
starr-openai ·