Serious auto-compact bug: agent repeatedly enters a resume loop after conversation optimization.
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100
Research direction
The report names no source files, tests, or reproducible steps beyond triggering auto-compact in the Codex App. Start by reproducing the repeated resume/compact cycle, then trace the conversation compaction and resume flow; done means progress continues after compaction or the agent safely stops with a handoff and detects repeated cycles.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.715.52
What subscription do you have?
Pro
What platform is your computer?
No response
What issue are you seeing?
Serious auto-compact bug: agent repeatedly enters a resume loop after conversation optimization.
After auto-compact / “Optimized the conversation,” the agent resumes with near-identical status messages, re-reads the same files, then compacts again. It does not appear to preserve progress across the compact boundary.
The agent may also deny the loop (“Still connected, and no loop”) while repeating the exact same cycle.
Impact:
- Task appears active but makes no real progress.
- User prompts like “are you still connected?” can restart the loop.
- The agent may repeatedly re-read files or resume the same plan instead of producing a handoff.
- This has happened twice across my work.
Expected behavior:
After compaction, the agent should continue from the next concrete step, or stop with a handoff if state is insufficient. It should detect repeated compact/resume cycles and exit safely rather than looping.
Observed repeated pattern:
- Agent says it will re-open/trace the active code path.
- “Read files”
- “Optimized the conversation”
- Agent says it is still connected and will re-open the same code path.
- “Read files”
- “Optimized the conversation”
- Same cycle repeats.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Fix the bug
What is the expected behavior?
No response
Additional information
No response
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 125k
- Forks
- 19.5k
- Avg merge
- 1m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 1k
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
More from openai/codex
-
enhancement remote
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 68/100
-
bug CLI windows-os
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 76/100
-
macOS sandbox blocks hw.optional.arm64 sysctl, causing Flutter to misdetect Apple Silicon as x64 Openbug CLI sandbox
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 78/100
-
bug CLI TUI
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 90/100
-
CLI config enhancement skills
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 84/100
Similar issues
-
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 86/100
kwakseongjae/auto-hwp#319 ·
-
area:cli bug filter-quality good first issue priority:medium
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 84/100
-
Difficulty 1/5 Under an hour Newbie friendliness 72/100
bevyengine/bevy#25861 ·
-
comp-datalake
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 88/100
ClickHouse/ClickHouse#121222 ·
-
A-linter
Difficulty 2/5 1-3 hours Newbie friendliness 72/100
oxc-project/oxc#26863 ·