Codex Desktop: reasoning effort resets to Medium in a new project chat until the first message

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Unknown (not collected from the About dialog).

What subscription do you have?

Not provided.

What platform is your computer?

macOS.

What issue are you seeing?

When starting a new chat inside a project, before sending the first message, changing the reasoning effort slider to any value other than Medium does not stick: it resets to Medium. Once the chat contains its first message, changing the effort works.

The selected value may be reverting to the project's default, but that is only a hypothesis; the project default has not been verified.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Start a new chat inside an existing project in Codex Desktop.
2. Before sending the first message, open the reasoning effort control.
3. Select a value other than Medium.
4. Observe that the selection resets to Medium and the other value cannot be retained.
5. Send the first message in the chat.
6. Try changing the reasoning effort again. It can now be changed successfully.

What is the expected behavior?

The effort selected before the first message should persist and apply to the first request. Users should not have to send a message at an unwanted effort just to make the control work.

Additional information

• This report is based on the user's observed behavior; it was not independently reproduced by the reporting assistant.
• The supplied screenshot shows GPT-6 Astra and the effort slider with Extra High displayed. A static screenshot does not capture the reset itself.
• Built-in feedback is unavailable: it reports "Sending feedback is disabled in your configuration".
• Workaround: send the first message, then change effort for subsequent messages.
• Possibly related but different: #44184 concerns stale effort on continuation of an existing task; this report concerns a new project chat before its first message.

No source files or tests are named. Reproduce the behavior in a new project chat before sending its first message, then trace the desktop project's reasoning-effort state and first-request flow. Done means a non-Medium selection persists before the first message and applies to that request, while later changes continue to work.