openai / openai/codex

Codex Desktop briefly drops literal task-title prefixes from the sidebar after restart

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app bug session
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
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Description

Environment
  • Codex Desktop: 26.810.41047 (build 6570)
  • App server: 0.148.0-alpha.9
  • macOS: 26.4.1 (25E253)
  • Architecture: arm64
What issue are you seeing?

After a cold restart, the Codex Desktop sidebar initially rendered existing
task titles without their literal status prefixes, for example:

  • [CHILD:in_progress] Example A
  • [CHILD:ready] Example B

The underlying titles were not modified. Direct task-list and task readbacks,
as well as the local title index, still contained the complete prefixed titles.
No title-update events occurred for the affected tasks after restart.

This appears to be a renderer/sidebar hydration or cache issue rather than
metadata loss.

Steps to reproduce
  1. Give several tasks literal title prefixes such as [CHILD:in_progress]
    and [CHILD:ready].
  2. Fully quit Codex Desktop.
  3. Relaunch the application.
  4. Inspect the project sidebar immediately after startup.
  5. Compare the displayed labels with task-list/readback data.
Expected behavior

The sidebar immediately renders the complete persisted task titles.

Actual behavior

The sidebar temporarily displays titles without their literal prefixes,
making workflow state appear lost even though persisted metadata is intact.

Sanitized diagnostics
  • Previous app session stopped at 2026-08-14T07:57:45.038Z.
  • New app session launched at 2026-08-14T07:57:48.104Z.
  • Initialization succeeded at 07:57:48.212Z.
  • Main window was ready at 07:57:48.594Z (startupElapsedMs=334).
  • Routes mounted at 07:57:49.789Z.
  • The discrepancy was noticed about 41 seconds after relaunch.
  • By 07:59:29.891Z, task-list readback returned the original prefixes.
  • Individual readbacks confirmed them again around 08:00:00Z.
  • The local index contained 30 prefixed titles, none rewritten after restart.
  • Exact visual recovery time is unknown because no sidebar-render telemetry
    was recorded.
  • Observed once after a cold relaunch; logout/update cases were not tested.

The full desktop session ID was supplied privately to OpenAI Support.
Public identifier: ec2f2520-…-5f40c.

No task IDs, real titles, repository paths, summaries, project content,
transcripts, logs, or attachments are included.

Impact

Multi-task workflow state appears to be lost, which may cause users to rename
tasks unnecessarily or reconstruct orchestration state.

Related but not exact: #36504 and #35090.

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 source files, tests, or code entry points are named. Reproduce the cold-restart case, then compare the sidebar labels with task-list/readback data and the local title index; done means persisted literal prefixes render correctly immediately after startup.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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