CLI/TUI: support editing an already-sent user message and regenerating downstream turns

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Apr 9, 2026 by astomodynamics Closed Apr 9, 2026

What variant of Codex are you using?
CLI

What feature would you like to see?
Support editing an already-sent user message in Codex CLI/TUI, with the same semantics as VS Code Codex and ChatGPT web: edit a previous user turn, submit the edited text, and regenerate downstream turns from that point. This is not history recall, rollback/backtrack, or fork/branch. It is true post-send message editing.

Additional information
This would make CLI prompt iteration consistent with other Codex/OpenAI surfaces. The closest existing issue I found is about branching from a previous message, but that is a different workflow from editing an existing sent message in place and regenerating from there. If full support is too large initially, even a first version limited to editing the most recent user message would help.

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2 Comments

astomodynamics · 4 months ago

Clarification on expected semantics:

This request is specifically for true edit-in-place behavior on an already-sent user message, matching VS Code Codex and ChatGPT web.

Expected behavior:

editing a sent user message replaces that original user turn in the current thread
all later turns in that same thread are invalidated/discarded
the conversation regenerates from the edited turn onward
this should not create a separate fork/branch by default

In other words, the requested workflow is intentionally different from history recall, rollback/backtrack, or branch-from-here.

astomodynamics · 4 months ago

Closing this because the current Codex TUI already has an existing rewind/backtrack flow that covers the requested use case: with an empty composer, press Esc, then Esc again to open backtrack, select the earlier user turn, press Enter, then edit/resend from there.

So this is better understood as a discoverability/docs gap than a missing core feature.