›_ Codex Issues
Codex Issues / #18129

Sidebar file view does not auto-refresh when AI modifies open files (requires manual reopen)

Open 💬 4 comments Opened Apr 16, 2026 by MeXenon
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

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

latest

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What platform is your computer?

_No response_

What issue are you seeing?

When opening a file from the Codex desktop application's sidebar (especially markdown files), the file content does not automatically update if the AI modifies it. The user must manually close and reopen the file tab to see the latest changes. This disrupts workflow and creates confusion about whether updates were applied.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Open Codex desktop application
  2. Navigate to the sidebar file explorer
  3. Open a markdown file (or any editable file)
  4. Trigger the AI to modify or update that file
  5. Observe the open file tab content
  6. Close and reopen the file tab

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 4 months ago

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

  • #17379
  • #17315

Powered by Codex Action

BernhardStreit-rms · 3 months ago

This is very annoying, especially when fine-tuning a document and it wouldn't update on its own.

I'd say it's not really related to the suggested duplicates.

fireshort · 3 months ago

I hit the same issue today in Codex Desktop on Windows, with a slightly different but important reproduction path:

  1. Open C:\Users\ivan4.000\.codex\AGENTS.md in the right-side file viewer.
  2. Ask the agent to modify that file.
  3. The agent edits the file successfully on disk and replies with a clickable file link, for example AGENTS.md (line 17).
  4. Click that file link in the assistant response.
  5. The already-open file tab is focused, but it still shows the stale pre-edit content.
  6. Close the file tab and reopen it.
  7. The updated content appears.

So this is not only a missing auto-refresh while the file tab is open. The file-link/open-file path also appears to reuse the existing editor/document model without checking whether the on-disk file changed.

Expected behavior: when focusing an already-open file from a response link, or after agent-side edits, the app should detect the changed on-disk file and refresh the viewer, or at least show a reload prompt. Otherwise users can easily think the agent did not actually modify the file, which is especially confusing for rule/config files like AGENTS.md.

samuelstevens · 3 months ago

Agree. I feel like I'm misunderstanding how to use codex because of this. Do folks not leave file previews open to give feedback/watch file edits?