Windows desktop Codex flashes visible command-prompt windows during work
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 58/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- cli, operating-systems
Research direction
Start at the Windows command runner and reproduce an active Codex task while observing whether conhost.exe children appear in the foreground. Check the process-creation behavior against the requested hidden or no-window startup behavior; done means command execution no longer flashes visible console windows unless an interactive terminal is explicitly requested.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Description
On Windows, while Codex is actively working, command-prompt or console windows briefly flash in front of other applications and then disappear. This is disruptive and can look like unauthorized activity.
Environment
- Operating system: Windows
- Surface: Codex desktop app
- Observed runner version: 0.146.0-alpha.3.1
Observed behavior
During an active Codex task, Windows process inspection showed Codex command-runner processes spawning Windows Console Host (conhost.exe) children. The console windows appear briefly in the foreground rather than remaining hidden or in the background.
The behavior correlates directly with Codex working. No SSH process or Codex/OpenAI scheduled task was found during the investigation.
Expected behavior
Command execution should remain hidden or backgrounded unless the user explicitly requests an interactive terminal window.
Impact
Repeated foreground flashes interrupt work and can cause users to suspect unauthorized access to their machine.
Requested fix
Ensure Codex's Windows command runner creates console processes with hidden or no-window startup flags, or otherwise prevents transient console hosts from appearing in the foreground.
No user-identifying information, private paths, credentials, files, or conversation content are included in this report.
- 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 ·