This PR adds the API V2 version of the apply_patch approval flow, which
centers around `ThreadItem::FileChange`.
This PR wires the new RPC (`item/fileChange/requestApproval`, V2 only)
and related events (`item/started`, `item/completed` for
`ThreadItem::FileChange`, which are emitted in both V1 and V2) through
the app-server
protocol. The new approval RPC is only sent when the user initiates a
turn with the new `turn/start` API so we don't break backwards
compatibility with VSCE.
Similar to https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/6758, the approach I
took was to make as few changes to the Codex core as possible,
leveraging existing `EventMsg` core events, and translating those in
app-server. I did have to add a few additional fields to
`EventMsg::PatchApplyBegin` and `EventMsg::PatchApplyEnd`, but those
were fairly lightweight.
However, the `EventMsg`s emitted by core are the following:
```
1) Auto-approved (no request for approval)
- EventMsg::PatchApplyBegin
- EventMsg::PatchApplyEnd
2) Approved by user
- EventMsg::ApplyPatchApprovalRequest
- EventMsg::PatchApplyBegin
- EventMsg::PatchApplyEnd
3) Declined by user
- EventMsg::ApplyPatchApprovalRequest
- EventMsg::PatchApplyBegin
- EventMsg::PatchApplyEnd
```
For a request triggering an approval, this would result in:
```
item/fileChange/requestApproval
item/started
item/completed
```
which is different from the `ThreadItem::CommandExecution` flow
introduced in https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/6758, which does the
below and is preferable:
```
item/started
item/commandExecution/requestApproval
item/completed
```
To fix this, we leverage `TurnSummaryStore` on codex_message_processor
to store a little bit of state, allowing us to fire `item/started` and
`item/fileChange/requestApproval` whenever we receive the underlying
`EventMsg::ApplyPatchApprovalRequest`, and no-oping when we receive the
`EventMsg::PatchApplyBegin` later.
This is much less invasive than modifying the order of EventMsg within
core (I tried).
The resulting payloads:
```
{
"method": "item/started",
"params": {
"item": {
"changes": [
{
"diff": "Hello from Codex!\n",
"kind": "add",
"path": "/Users/owen/repos/codex/codex-rs/APPROVAL_DEMO.txt"
}
],
"id": "call_Nxnwj7B3YXigfV6Mwh03d686",
"status": "inProgress",
"type": "fileChange"
}
}
}
```
```
{
"id": 0,
"method": "item/fileChange/requestApproval",
"params": {
"grantRoot": null,
"itemId": "call_Nxnwj7B3YXigfV6Mwh03d686",
"reason": null,
"threadId": "019a9e11-8295-7883-a283-779e06502c6f",
"turnId": "1"
}
}
```
```
{
"id": 0,
"result": {
"decision": "accept"
}
}
```
```
{
"method": "item/completed",
"params": {
"item": {
"changes": [
{
"diff": "Hello from Codex!\n",
"kind": "add",
"path": "/Users/owen/repos/codex/codex-rs/APPROVAL_DEMO.txt"
}
],
"id": "call_Nxnwj7B3YXigfV6Mwh03d686",
"status": "completed",
"type": "fileChange"
}
}
}
```
This PR adds the API V2 version of the command‑execution approval flow
for the shell tool.
This PR wires the new RPC (`item/commandExecution/requestApproval`, V2
only) and related events (`item/started`, `item/completed`, and
`item/commandExecution/delta`, which are emitted in both V1 and V2)
through the app-server
protocol. The new approval RPC is only sent when the user initiates a
turn with the new `turn/start` API so we don't break backwards
compatibility with VSCE.
The approach I took was to make as few changes to the Codex core as
possible, leveraging existing `EventMsg` core events, and translating
those in app-server. I did have to add additional fields to
`EventMsg::ExecCommandEndEvent` to capture the command's input so that
app-server can statelessly transform these events to a
`ThreadItem::CommandExecution` item for the `item/completed` event.
Once we stabilize the API and it's complete enough for our partners, we
can work on migrating the core to be aware of command execution items as
a first-class concept.
**Note**: We'll need followup work to make sure these APIs work for the
unified exec tool, but will wait til that's stable and landed before
doing a pass on app-server.
Example payloads below:
```
{
"method": "item/started",
"params": {
"item": {
"aggregatedOutput": null,
"command": "/bin/zsh -lc 'touch /tmp/should-trigger-approval'",
"cwd": "/Users/owen/repos/codex/codex-rs",
"durationMs": null,
"exitCode": null,
"id": "call_lNWWsbXl1e47qNaYjFRs0dyU",
"parsedCmd": [
{
"cmd": "touch /tmp/should-trigger-approval",
"type": "unknown"
}
],
"status": "inProgress",
"type": "commandExecution"
}
}
}
```
```
{
"id": 0,
"method": "item/commandExecution/requestApproval",
"params": {
"itemId": "call_lNWWsbXl1e47qNaYjFRs0dyU",
"parsedCmd": [
{
"cmd": "touch /tmp/should-trigger-approval",
"type": "unknown"
}
],
"reason": "Need to create file in /tmp which is outside workspace sandbox",
"risk": null,
"threadId": "019a93e8-0a52-7fe3-9808-b6bc40c0989a",
"turnId": "1"
}
}
```
```
{
"id": 0,
"result": {
"acceptSettings": {
"forSession": false
},
"decision": "accept"
}
}
```
```
{
"params": {
"item": {
"aggregatedOutput": null,
"command": "/bin/zsh -lc 'touch /tmp/should-trigger-approval'",
"cwd": "/Users/owen/repos/codex/codex-rs",
"durationMs": 224,
"exitCode": 0,
"id": "call_lNWWsbXl1e47qNaYjFRs0dyU",
"parsedCmd": [
{
"cmd": "touch /tmp/should-trigger-approval",
"type": "unknown"
}
],
"status": "completed",
"type": "commandExecution"
}
}
}
```
* Removed sandbox risk categories; feedback indicates that these are not
that useful and "less is more"
* Tweaked the assessment prompt to generate terser answers
* Fixed bug in orchestrator that prevents this feature from being
exposed in the extension
We had this annotation everywhere in app-server APIs which made it so
that fields get serialized as `field?: T`, meaning if the field as
`None` we would omit the field in the payload. Removing this annotation
changes it so that we return `field: T | null` instead, which makes
codex app-server's API more aligned with the convention of public OpenAI
APIs like Responses.
Separately, remove the `#[ts(optional_fields = nullable)]` annotations
that were recently added which made all the TS types become `field?: T |
null` which is not great since clients need to handle undefined and
null.
I think generally it'll be best to have optional types be either:
- `field: T | null` (preferred, aligned with public OpenAI APIs)
- `field?: T` where we have to, such as types generated from the MCP
schema:
https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol/blob/main/schema/2025-06-18/schema.ts
(see changes to `mcp-types/`)
I updated @etraut-openai's unit test to check that all generated TS
types are one or the other, not both (so will error if we have a type
that has `field?: T | null`). I don't think there's currently a good use
case for that - but we can always revisit.
This PR addresses a current hole in the TypeScript code generation for
the API server protocol. Fields that are marked as "Optional<>" in the
Rust code are serialized such that the value is omitted when it is
deserialized — appearing as `undefined`, but the TS type indicates
(incorrectly) that it is always defined but possibly `null`. This can
lead to subtle errors that the TypeScript compiler doesn't catch. The
fix is to include the `#[ts(optional_fields = nullable)]` macro for all
protocol structs that contain one or more `Optional<>` fields.
This PR also includes a new test that validates that all TS protocol
code containing "| null" in its type is marked optional ("?") to catch
cases where `#[ts(optional_fields = nullable)]` is omitted.
This PR adds support for a model-based summary and risk assessment for
commands that violate the sandbox policy and require user approval. This
aids the user in evaluating whether the command should be approved.
The feature works by taking a failed command and passing it back to the
model and asking it to summarize the command, give it a risk level (low,
medium, high) and a risk category (e.g. "data deletion" or "data
exfiltration"). It uses a new conversation thread so the context in the
existing thread doesn't influence the answer. If the call to the model
fails or takes longer than 5 seconds, it falls back to the current
behavior.
For now, this is an experimental feature and is gated by a config key
`experimental_sandbox_command_assessment`.
Here is a screen shot of the approval prompt showing the risk assessment
and summary.
<img width="723" height="282" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4597dd7c-d5a0-4e9f-9d13-414bd082fd6b"
/>
Owen Lin ·
Eric Traut ·