openai / openai/codex

Automatic continuation loop consumed tokens without making progress

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#37,800 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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agent bug model-behavior rate-limits
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
125k
Forks
19.5k
PR merge metrics
PR metrics pending

Description

Summary

@tibo-openai, I encountered a runaway automatic-continuation loop in a long-running Codex task.

After making real progress on a documentation-localization goal, the task repeatedly emitted only 继续处理中 (“continuing”) without editing files or making meaningful progress. The empty continuation turns continued to consume tokens and time, and the goal was eventually marked blocked.

Expected behavior

  • A long-running goal should resume actual work, or visibly pause/stop with a clear reason.
  • Empty automatic continuation turns should not continue consuming tokens.
  • Users need a reliable way to stop a runaway continuation loop.

Impact

This wasted a substantial number of tokens and significant time.

Please investigate whether this is a task-continuation scheduling/state bug, and whether usage consumed by these empty turns can be restored.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No file, test, or entry point is named in the issue. Start by reproducing a long-running task that emits repeated empty continuation turns, then trace the continuation scheduling and state behavior. Done means empty turns no longer consume tokens indefinitely, the task pauses or stops clearly, and a reliable stop path is available.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli, devtools
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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