Windows Remote: every new projectless chat fails trust verification with malformed path

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Windows Store package observed from the running process:

OpenAI.Codex_26.818.3698.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0

Both the Windows Codex app and the ChatGPT mobile app are fully updated as of 2026-08-20.

What platform is your computer?

Windows x64.

What issue are you seeing?

Creating any new projectless Codex chat from Remote in the ChatGPT mobile app fails with a project-trust error:

Can't verify project trust for C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Codex\2026-08-20hello-3.
Open the repository in Codex on the remote computer and make a trust choice,
then select that repository's original directory and try again.
You can also start in Read only mode.

This is systematic for every newly created Remote chat, not specific to one repository.

The displayed path is malformed: it omits the separator between the date directory and generated chat directory:

Malformed: C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Codex\2026-08-20hello-3
Actual:    C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Codex\2026-08-20\hello-3

The generated hello-3 directory:

• exists at the actual path;
• is an empty projectless-chat folder;
• is not a Git repository;
• is not a symlink, junction, shortcut, or reparse point;
• has normal read/write permissions;
• can be opened directly in Codex.

Opening that folder on the desktop does not solve the systematic problem because the next new Remote chat creates a different generated projectless directory and fails the same way.

Local inspection also found:

• Remote Control has persisted installation and environment IDs;
• the Remote configuration migration is marked complete;
• the parent Codex workspace is already trusted;
• no stale saved-project registration exists for hello-3;
• hello-3 is correctly absent from saved local projects because it is projectless;
• filesystem read/write/cleanup succeeds.

This appears to be a Remote projectless-chat classification and Windows path-joining defect: a generated projectless workspace is treated as a repository requiring an individual trust decision, while its validation path is constructed without a directory separator.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Run the current Codex desktop app on Windows.
2. Enable Remote Control.
3. In the current ChatGPT mobile app, connect to the Windows machine.
4. Start a brand-new projectless Codex chat from Remote.
5. Observe the project-trust failure for the automatically generated chat folder.
6. Inspect the reported path and notice the missing separator between the date directory and chat slug.
7. Start another new projectless Remote chat.
8. Observe the same failure for the newly generated directory.

Opening/trusting the previous generated folder does not prevent the next new Remote chat from failing.

What is the expected behavior?

A new projectless Remote chat should start without being treated as a Git repository requiring project trust.

The generated Windows path should be canonical and correctly joined:

C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Codex\YYYY-MM-DD\<chat-slug>

If a trust check is intentionally required, it should apply to the stable projectless workspace root rather than requiring a separate desktop action for every automatically generated chat folder.

Actual behavior

Every new projectless Remote chat is blocked by repository trust verification. The error references a nonexistent malformed path with a missing backslash. Read-only mode is the only reliable workaround.

Impact

Remote cannot create normal writable projectless chats on the affected Windows machine. The user must either accept read-only mode, pre-create each chat on the desktop, or repeatedly interact with automatically generated folders, which defeats Remote's purpose.

Start by reproducing a projectless Remote chat on Windows and trace the generated workspace through project-trust validation and Windows path construction. Compare the malformed validation path with the actual generated directory and verify whether projectless workspaces are being classified as repositories. Done means new writable projectless chats start successfully with canonical paths, without per-chat trust actions.