Codex is again asking for permission for every single file read command

Open 💬 17 comments Opened Feb 28, 2026 by Rawalanche
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of the IDE extension are you using?

0.4.79

What subscription do you have?

Plus

Which IDE are you using?

VS Code

What platform is your computer?

Windows 25H2

What issue are you seeing?

The bug where Codex would ask for permission for every single file read/grep command is back. Codex will ask several dozen of permissions to simply read files.

<img width="1398" height="926" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0fa598d2-957c-42b4-9df3-ecfe54cfba78" />

This bug used to exist quite a while ago but was eventually solved. It has now returned in v0.4.79

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Prompt the Codex to inspect wider codebase (such as "Can you look around the project and find all usages of foo".
  2. Select the "Yea and don't ask again" on every "Do you want to run this command" prompt.
  3. Codex will still ask again.

What is the expected behavior?

The codex will browse the code base and return the information it gathered without need to confirm several dozens of "Do you want to run this command" prompts. Only write access prompts should require confirmation, not read ones.

Additional information

In this particular case, I had to confirm about ~40-50 GetContent commands:

<img width="1393" height="1039" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/701cc898-4391-4184-904c-7a077b25bf83" />

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

17 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 4 months ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

  • #11580
  • #11298
  • #12095

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etraut-openai contributor · 4 months ago

This is likely because the Windows sandbox is not enabled or failed to install at startup.

Does the problem go away if you downgrade to a previous version of the extension? I'm trying to determine if this is a regression in the Codex extension or is caused by some other change on your system.

Rawalanche · 4 months ago
This is likely because the Windows sandbox is not enabled or failed to install at startup. Does the problem go away if you downgrade to a previous version of the extension? I'm trying to determine if this is a regression in the Codex extension or is caused by some other change on your system.

It seems solved by enabling "Run Codex in Windows Subsystem for Linux" setting.

However I am pretty sure earlier equivalent of this setting must have been enabled before somehow (I think the option to do it used to exist directly in the cogwheel settings menu before) because codex hasn't bothered me with approve prompts for past ~2 months.

Possibly something in 0.4.79 caused the WSL sandbox setting to reset to default.

I could try to downgrade to test it again, but I am a bit reluctant to do it now that the extension once again magically works well. This extension is very fragile and buggy, so any state/setup that has relatively no problems is rare and I'd like to enjoy it while it lasts.

god-boat · 4 months ago

also seeing this issue. super annoying every get content command needs approval. feels like a regression since last week this was not the case, get content did not require approval. Issue persists across app reloads and system restarts V 0.5.79, vs code

EricGT · 4 months ago
This is likely because the Windows sandbox is not enabled or failed to install at startup.

Would you consider this a valid way to check?

Using Windows Task Manager search for codex

<img width="963" height="409" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f8681eed-ffde-4163-844e-877688e68633" />

For each Codex session there should be a codex-windows-sandbox. So if three instances of VSCode are running and using Codex there should be three codex-windows-sandbox, e.g.

<img width="963" height="409" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ed02158b-528e-405b-89c8-db7431c8c5e0" />

---

Or to see the command line using Windows Task Manager details tab

<img width="1335" height="409" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3ada005b-0824-4ff5-8abc-833c682b893b" />

Rawalanche · 4 months ago

It happened to me again when I opened different VSCode project:

<img width="2154" height="1323" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/837e6eba-0f7f-44ed-b501-5327875cc2fd" />

WSL is enabled in VSCode Codex settings, but no, there's no codex-windows-sandbox.exe running.

Of course "Yes and don't ask again...." doesn't do anything

kell18 · 4 months ago

Same problem and it's extremely annoying :(

Rawalanche · 4 months ago

It's extremely frustrating because it appears to have nothing to do with VSCode/Codex configuration. It simply happens randomly in some projects/repos while doesn't happen in others at all whatsoever.

Mujtaba-Abbasi · 4 months ago

I am facing the same issue but on Ubuntu, extremely annoying.

empyriumz · 4 months ago
It's extremely frustrating because it appears to have nothing to do with VSCode/Codex configuration. It simply happens randomly in some projects/repos while doesn't happen in others at all whatsoever.

same issue here. it seems project dependent.

0tii · 2 months ago

still happening, default permissions asking for permission with every single change, even if you hit "yes and dont ask again". The fact this keeps regressing over and over again (together with the tons of other regressions in every update) just shows how betting on agentic AI to do the majority of your development inevitably affects your product quality. man am i looking forward to the software landscape in the future, where its normal to push out features by the metric ton but subsequently make the whole product more and more brittle.

0tii · 2 months ago

Still happening, the golden age of AI is really just the golden age of regressions that never get fixed because "too busy introducing new unstable features while breaking existing functionality". actually infuriating.

Ciriak · 1 month ago

Still happening

luisjdtt · 1 month ago

Any updates on this?

<img width="774" height="157" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/90b11e76-5aba-4f40-a775-af4319a0c9db" />

It is very annoying that happens with every command despite pressing the dont ask again.

i am on macbook.

TeamDman · 1 month ago

still happening.

nischalj10 · 1 month ago

still happening on macbook

CheesyBiscuits · 26 days ago

Oh my god this is infuriating. Since the latest update I have had to approve everything even with Full Access turned on.