Codex app can enter an AppleSystemPolicy retry loop and drive syspolicyd/trustd high CPU on macOS

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.406.31014

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 23.6.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Codex.app on macOS entered a retry loop that repeatedly triggered AppleSystemPolicy / Gatekeeper checks, causing very high CPU usage in syspolicyd and trustd.

Observed impact:

• syspolicyd reached about 131% CPU
• trustd reached about 62% CPU
• Codex itself was also consuming CPU
• restarting Codex immediately resolved the issue

Key evidence from logs:

2026-04-09 21:12:04.848 Df kernel[...] (AppleSystemPolicy) ASP: Security policy would not allow process: 87793, /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/MacOS/Codex
2026-04-09 21:12:04.848 Df kernel[...] (AppleSystemPolicy) ASP: Could not find reference 26755285, process must have died

At the same time, syspolicyd logs were repeatedly showing:

• SecTrustEvaluateIfNecessary
• failed to call driver: 0x3

This looked like Codex itself was repeatedly being launched or retried and repeatedly hitting AppleSystemPolicy until the app was restarted.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Launch Codex on macOS.
2. Use the app normally for a while with active terminal / agent activity.
3. At some point, syspolicyd and trustd spike in Activity Monitor.
4. Unified logs show repeated AppleSystemPolicy / syspolicyd messages.
5. Restart Codex.
6. CPU usage drops and the issue stops.

What I was able to verify:

• spctl and gktool checks later passed for apps, so this did not look like a permanently broken signature or damaged SystemPolicy database.
• The strongest signal was the AppleSystemPolicy kernel log explicitly naming /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/MacOS/Codex.

I do not yet have a minimal deterministic repro beyond the app entering this bad state during normal use.

What is the expected behavior?

Codex should not enter a process launch / retry loop that repeatedly triggers AppleSystemPolicy, syspolicyd, and trustd work. Normal app use should not drive sustained high CPU in those system security daemons.

Additional information

Additional context:

• Apple Silicon Mac (M1)
• macOS 23.6.0
• Time observed: 2026-04-09 around 21:05 to 21:12, Asia/Shanghai (UTC+8)
• Restarting Codex fixed the issue immediately

This seems more like a Codex runtime state problem than a persistent macOS policy database problem, because the system recovered as soon as Codex was restarted.