helpful in the future if we want more granularity for requesting
escalated permissions:
e.g when running in readonly sandbox, model can request to escalate to a
sandbox that allows writes
Currently, we only show the “don’t ask again for commands that start
with…” option when a command is immediately flagged as needing approval.
However, there is another case where we ask for approval: When a command
is initially auto-approved to run within sandbox, but it fails to run
inside sandbox, we would like to attempt to retry running outside of
sandbox. This will require a prompt to the user.
This PR addresses this latter case
- Introduce `with_remote_overrides` and update
`refresh_available_models`
- Put `auth_manager` instead of `auth_mode` on `models_manager`
- Remove `ShellType` and `ReasoningLevel` to use already existing
structs
- Inline response recording during streaming: `run_turn` now records
items as they arrive instead of building a `ProcessedResponseItem` list
and post‑processing via `process_items`.
- Simplify turn handling: `handle_output_item_done` returns the
follow‑up signal + optional tool future; `needs_follow_up` is set only
there, and in‑flight tool futures are drained once at the end (errors
logged, no extra state writes).
- Flattened stream loop: removed `process_items` indirection and the
extra output queue
- - Tests: relaxed `tool_parallelism::tool_results_grouped` to allow any
completion order while still requiring matching call/output IDs.
## Refactor of the `execpolicy` crate
To illustrate why we need this refactor, consider an agent attempting to
run `apple | rm -rf ./`. Suppose `apple` is allowed by `execpolicy`.
Before this PR, `execpolicy` would consider `apple` and `pear` and only
render one rule match: `Allow`. We would skip any heuristics checks on
`rm -rf ./` and immediately approve `apple | rm -rf ./` to run.
To fix this, we now thread a `fallback` evaluation function into
`execpolicy` that runs when no `execpolicy` rules match a given command.
In our example, we would run `fallback` on `rm -rf ./` and prevent
`apple | rm -rf ./` from being run without approval.
this PR enables TUI to approve commands and add their prefixes to an
allowlist:
<img width="708" height="605" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-21 at 4 18 07 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/56a19893-4553-4770-a881-becf79eeda32"
/>
note: we only show the option to whitelist the command when
1) command is not multi-part (e.g `git add -A && git commit -m 'hello
world'`)
2) command is not already matched by an existing rule
This PR moves `ModelsFamily` to `openai_models`. It also propagates
`ModelsManager` to session services and use it to drive model family. We
also make `derive_default_model_family` private because it's a step
towards what we want: one place that gives model configuration.
This is a second step at having one source of truth for models
information and config: `ModelsManager`.
Next steps would be to remove `ModelsFamily` from config. That's massive
because it's being used in 41 occasions mostly pre launching `codex`.
Also, we need to make `find_family_for_model` private. It's also big
because it's being used in 21 occasions ~ all tests.
# Unified Exec Shell Selection on Windows
## Problem
reference issue #7466
The `unified_exec` handler currently deserializes model-provided tool
calls into the `ExecCommandArgs` struct:
```rust
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize)]
struct ExecCommandArgs {
cmd: String,
#[serde(default)]
workdir: Option<String>,
#[serde(default = "default_shell")]
shell: String,
#[serde(default = "default_login")]
login: bool,
#[serde(default = "default_exec_yield_time_ms")]
yield_time_ms: u64,
#[serde(default)]
max_output_tokens: Option<usize>,
#[serde(default)]
with_escalated_permissions: Option<bool>,
#[serde(default)]
justification: Option<String>,
}
```
The `shell` field uses a hard-coded default:
```rust
fn default_shell() -> String {
"/bin/bash".to_string()
}
```
When the model returns a tool call JSON that only contains `cmd` (which
is the common case), Serde fills in `shell` with this default value.
Later, `get_command` uses that value as if it were a model-provided
shell path:
```rust
fn get_command(args: &ExecCommandArgs) -> Vec<String> {
let shell = get_shell_by_model_provided_path(&PathBuf::from(args.shell.clone()));
shell.derive_exec_args(&args.cmd, args.login)
}
```
On Unix, this usually resolves to `/bin/bash` and works as expected.
However, on Windows this behavior is problematic:
- The hard-coded `"/bin/bash"` is not a valid Windows path.
- `get_shell_by_model_provided_path` treats this as a model-specified
shell, and tries to resolve it (e.g. via `which::which("bash")`), which
may or may not exist and may not behave as intended.
- In practice, this leads to commands being executed under a non-default
or non-existent shell on Windows (for example, WSL bash), instead of the
expected Windows PowerShell or `cmd.exe`.
The core of the issue is that **"model did not specify `shell`" is
currently interpreted as "the model explicitly requested `/bin/bash`"**,
which is both Unix-specific and wrong on Windows.
## Proposed Solution
Instead of hard-coding `"/bin/bash"` into `ExecCommandArgs`, we should
distinguish between:
1. **The model explicitly specifying a shell**, e.g.:
```json
{
"cmd": "echo hello",
"shell": "pwsh"
}
```
In this case, we *do* want to respect the model’s choice and use
`get_shell_by_model_provided_path`.
2. **The model omitting the `shell` field entirely**, e.g.:
```json
{
"cmd": "echo hello"
}
```
In this case, we should *not* assume `/bin/bash`. Instead, we should use
`default_user_shell()` and let the platform decide.
To express this distinction, we can:
1. Change `shell` to be optional in `ExecCommandArgs`:
```rust
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize)]
struct ExecCommandArgs {
cmd: String,
#[serde(default)]
workdir: Option<String>,
#[serde(default)]
shell: Option<String>,
#[serde(default = "default_login")]
login: bool,
#[serde(default = "default_exec_yield_time_ms")]
yield_time_ms: u64,
#[serde(default)]
max_output_tokens: Option<usize>,
#[serde(default)]
with_escalated_permissions: Option<bool>,
#[serde(default)]
justification: Option<String>,
}
```
Here, the absence of `shell` in the JSON is represented as `shell:
None`, rather than a hard-coded string value.
I think this might help with https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/7033
because `create_approval_requirement_for_command()` will soon need
access to `Session.state`, which is a `tokio::sync::Mutex` that needs to
be accessed via `async`.
This updates `ExecParams` so that instead of taking `timeout_ms:
Option<u64>`, it now takes a more general cancellation mechanism,
`ExecExpiration`, which is an enum that includes a
`Cancellation(tokio_util::sync::CancellationToken)` variant.
If the cancellation token is fired, then `process_exec_tool_call()`
returns in the same way as if a timeout was exceeded.
This is necessary so that in #6973, we can manage the timeout logic
external to the `process_exec_tool_call()` because we want to "suspend"
the timeout when an elicitation from a human user is pending.
---
[//]: # (BEGIN SAPLING FOOTER)
Stack created with [Sapling](https://sapling-scm.com). Best reviewed
with [ReviewStack](https://reviewstack.dev/openai/codex/pull/6972).
* #7005
* #6973
* __->__ #6972
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 threads execpolicy2 into codex-core.
activated via feature flag: exec_policy (on by default)
reads and parses all .codexpolicy files in `codex_home/codex`
refactored tool runtime API to integrate execpolicy logic
---------
Co-authored-by: Michael Bolin <mbolin@openai.com>
Instead of returning structured out and then re-formatting it into
freeform, return the freeform output from shell_command tool.
Keep `shell` as the default tool for GPT-5.
- This PR is to make it on path for truncating by tokens. This path will
be initially used by unified exec and context manager (responsible for
MCP calls mainly).
- We are exposing new config `calls_output_max_tokens`
- Use `tokens` as the main budget unit but truncate based on the model
family by Introducing `TruncationPolicy`.
- Introduce `truncate_text` as a router for truncation based on the
mode.
In next PRs:
- remove truncate_with_line_bytes_budget
- Add the ability to the model to override the token budget.
- Local-shell tool responses were always tagged as
`ExecCommandSource::UserShell` because handler would call
`run_exec_like` with `is_user_shell_cmd` set to true.
- Treat `ToolPayload::LocalShell` the same as other model generated
shell tool calls by deleting `is_user_shell_cmd` from `run_exec_like`
(since actual user shell commands follow a separate code path)
## Summary
Enables shell_command for windows users, and starts adding some basic
command parsing here, to at least remove powershell prefixes. We'll
follow this up with command parsing but I wanted to land this change
separately with some basic UX.
**NOTE**: This implementation parses bash and powershell on both
platforms. In theory this is possible, since you can use git bash on
windows or powershell on linux. In practice, this may not be worth the
complexity of supporting, so I don't feel strongly about the current
approach vs. platform-specific branching.
## Testing
- [x] Added a bunch of tests
- [x] Ran on both windows and os x
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"
}
}
}
```
`--disable shell_tool` disables the built-in shell tool. This is useful
for MCP-only operation.
---------
Co-authored-by: Michael Bolin <mbolin@openai.com>
This adds support for a new variant of the shell tool behind a flag. To
test, run `codex` with `--enable shell_command_tool`, which will
register the tool with Codex under the name `shell_command` that accepts
the following shape:
```python
{
command: str
workdir: str | None,
timeout_ms: int | None,
with_escalated_permissions: bool | None,
justification: str | None,
}
```
This is comparable to the existing tool registered under
`shell`/`container.exec`. The primary difference is that it accepts
`command` as a `str` instead of a `str[]`. The `shell_command` tool
executes by running `execvp(["bash", "-lc", command])`, though the exact
arguments to `execvp(3)` depend on the user's default shell.
The hypothesis is that this will simplify things for the model. For
example, on Windows, instead of generating:
```json
{"command": ["pwsh.exe", "-NoLogo", "-Command", "ls -Name"]}
```
The model could simply generate:
```json
{"command": "ls -Name"}
```
As part of this change, I extracted some logic out of `user_shell.rs` as
`Shell::derive_exec_args()` so that it can be reused in
`codex-rs/core/src/tools/handlers/shell.rs`. Note the original code
generated exec arg lists like:
```javascript
["bash", "-lc", command]
["zsh", "-lc", command]
["pwsh.exe", "-NoProfile", "-Command", command]
```
Using `-l` for Bash and Zsh, but then specifying `-NoProfile` for
PowerShell seemed inconsistent to me, so I changed this in the new
implementation while also adding a `use_login_shell: bool` option to
make this explicit. If we decide to add a `login: bool` to
`ShellCommandToolCallParams` like we have for unified exec:
https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/807e2c27f0a9f2e85c50e7e6df5533f0d9b853c7/codex-rs/core/src/tools/handlers/unified_exec.rs#L33-L34
Then this should make it straightforward to support.
Eric TrautandGitHub
zhao-oaiandGitHub
jif-oaiandGitHub
pakrym-oaiandGitHub
Dylan HurdandGitHub
Ahmed IbrahimandGitHub
Robby HeandGitHub
Michael BolinandGitHub
Owen LinandGitHub
