openai / openai/codex

[Bug] Astra composer sparkle animation prevents mouse text selection in kitty (0.154.0)

Open
#44,398 9 comments 16 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

bug CLI TUI
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
125k
Forks
19.4k
PR merge metrics
PR metrics pending

Description

Environment
  • Codex CLI: 0.154.0
  • OS: macOS 26.6.2
  • Terminal: kitty 0.48.2
  • Model: GPT-6-Astra
Steps to reproduce
  1. Start Codex with the default decorative animations enabled.
  2. Select GPT-6-Astra.
  3. Enter text in the input composer.
  4. Try selecting the text by dragging with the mouse.
Actual behavior

Text cannot be selected while the sparkle animation is active, preventing copying from the composer. The failure happens at the selection step, before invoking a copy command.

Switching to another model removes the animation and restores selection. Switching back to Astra reproduces the problem.

Expected behavior

Decorative animations should not interfere with native terminal text selection or copying.

Verified workaround

Add the following setting to ~/.codex/config.toml and restart Codex:

[tui]
whimsy = false

I confirmed that text selection works again with Astra still selected after disabling this effect and restarting Codex.

Possible investigation lead

In version 0.154.0, chat_composer/sparkle.rs schedules animation frames every 150 ms. These redraws may interfere with kitty's selection handling; this is a hypothesis, not a confirmed root cause.

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

Start in codex-rs/tui/src/bottom_pane/chat_composer/sparkle.rs, where the Astra sparkle animation schedules frames every 150 ms. Reproduce the issue in kitty 0.48.2 with Codex CLI 0.154.0, then investigate whether those redraws disrupt native mouse selection in the composer. Done means text remains selectable and copyable with Astra and decorative animations enabled.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.