Codex Desktop shows growing number of phantom working subagents
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- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 125k
- Forks
- 19.5k
- PR merge metrics
- PR metrics pending
Description
In the AILAB-002 Codex chat, all subagents have completed and the live agent
registry reports no active child agents — only the root agent exists.
However, the Subagents panel initially displayed:
- 31 working
- 14 done
After fully quitting and reopening ChatGPT Desktop, the same chat displayed:
- 45 working
No new subagents were started between these observations.
Expected:
The panel should show 0 working subagents, or otherwise accurately reflect
the live agent registry.
Actual:
The number of “working” subagents increased from 31 to 45 after restarting
the application.
This looks like stale or duplicated subagent state being restored by the
desktop UI.
Environment:
- OS: Linux
- Date: 2026-08-14
- Chat: AILAB-002
- App version: [add version from Settings/About]
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.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the AILAB-002 chat in Codex Desktop on Linux, then inspect how subagent state is restored when the application reopens. Done means the Subagents panel accurately matches the live agent registry and shows no working children when none are active.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- desktop
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 48/100