Updater reports success even when npm min-release-age blocks @openai/codex upgrade

What version of Codex CLI is running?

codex-cli 0.116.0

What subscription do you have?

plus

Which model were you using?

gpt-5.4

What platform is your computer?

mac

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

Terminal.app

What issue are you seeing?

Summary

When upgrading Codex installed via npm, the updater can report:

:tada: Update ran successfully! Please restart Codex.

even when the npm upgrade was actually blocked by min-release-age and the installed Codex version did not change.

This is misleading because the update did not succeed from the user's perspective.

Environment

• Install method: npm
• Package: @openai/codex
• npm config: min-release-age enabled
• Codex version before update: <old version>
• Codex version after update attempt: <same old version>

Why this matters

min-release-age is a legitimate supply-chain safety feature in npm. If Codex treats that case as success, users may think they are already on the new version when they are not.

Additional notes

This may be related to the general class of updater issues where Codex shows a success message even though the update did not really apply, but this report is specifically about npm min-release-age causing a false-positive success message.

terminal output

$ codex

Updating Codex via `npm install -g @openai/codex`...

changed 2 packages in 51s

🎉 Update ran successfully! Please restart Codex.
$ codex

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ✨ Update available! 0.116.0 -> 0.118.0         │
│ Run npm install -g @openai/codex to update.     │
│                                                 │
│ See full release notes:                         │
│ https://github.com/openai/codex/releases/latest │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Codex via npm:

``bash
npm install -g @openai/codex
``

1. Configure npm to block very recent releases, for example:

``ini
min-release-age=1440
`
or equivalent config in .npmrc` / user config.

1. Try to upgrade Codex to a newly released version that is still within the min-release-age window.

1. Observe that npm does not actually install the newer version because of the age restriction.

1. Observe that Codex still prints:

``text
:tada: Update ran successfully! Please restart Codex.
``

1. Check the installed version:

``bash
codex --version
``
The version is unchanged.

What is the expected behavior?

Expected behavior

Codex should not report success unless the installed version actually changed.

Possible fixes:

• verify the installed version after running the updater
• inspect npm's exit/result more carefully
• surface the real reason when installation is blocked by npm policy such as min-release-age

Actual behavior

Codex reports that the update succeeded, even though npm blocked the install and the installed version did not change.

Additional information

_No response_