[macOS] Selectively closed Codex right-panel artifact tabs reappear after session restore

What version of the Codex App are you using?

ChatGPT desktop app for macOS: 26.911.61220 (bundle 9647)
Embedded Codex: 0.155.0-alpha.2.6

What platform is your computer?

macOS on Apple Silicon.

What issue are you seeing?

Closing selected artifact tabs in the Codex right panel is not persisted. The user wants to close only specific PDF tabs (Week 1–5 summary and Week 6 summary) while keeping the other browser tabs open. After opening the same Codex session again, the selected PDF tabs reappear.

This is a selective-tab persistence issue, not a request to close all tabs and not a browser cookie/session issue.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open the Week 1–5 summary PDF and Week 6 summary PDF as artifact tabs in the Codex right panel.
2. Keep the other browser tabs open.
3. Close only those two PDF tabs using their individual tab close controls.
4. Quit and reopen the same Codex session/thread.
5. Observe the right-panel tab list.

Expected behavior

Only tabs that were not closed should be restored. The two explicitly closed artifact tabs should remain absent.

Actual behavior

The closed Week 1–5 and Week 6 PDF tabs reappear after reopening. Local persisted thread-tab state still contains both artifact routes after the user reported closing them. A stale route to an old Slugify README editor tab was also present even though that old checkout had been moved to Trash.

Impact

• Closed tabs return unexpectedly and consume right-panel tab space.
• Users cannot trust that selective tab close was saved.
• No project files or browser data were deleted; this is a UI state/persistence problem.

Evidence boundary

The persisted-state inspection confirms that the selected artifact routes remain in the saved topology. The exact UI race or whether a particular close gesture is being interpreted as panel-close versus tab-close is not yet confirmed.

Related reports:

• #40559 — persisted editor tabs can make a thread repeatedly unopenable.
• #44108 — side-panel tab bar accumulates unclickable ghost tabs.

No private URLs, course content, account details, session IDs, or full local paths are included in this report.

Start by reproducing the right-panel artifact-tab close flow and inspecting the local persisted thread-tab state after closing selected tabs. Trace how individual tab-close controls update the saved topology, then verify that explicitly closed PDF routes stay absent after session restore and stale routes are not restored.