Display dot files and folders (.agents/.codex etc)

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• #18297

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The current behavior is intended, so we don't consider this a bug. I've changed it to a feature request, and we can see if other users upvote it.

Yes, this is definitely a much-needed feature.

Codex App is clearly moving toward becoming a full-fledged replacement IDE, and that’s exactly the direction it should continue in. Features like this are not just nice-to-have — they are essential for real daily development workflows.

If the goal is to make Codex App a primary development environment, it needs to cover these core use cases seamlessly, without forcing users to switch back to traditional IDEs.

Feels like we’re getting very close to that point 🚀

The "All files" setting on the "File Tree" not showing all files is really frustrating.

It's sorta gaslighting the user... Definitely the wrong UX decision and if it's principled in some way there should be a toggle for the censoring in Configuration/Personalisation/Appearance

A silly example is Codex referencing an .env.example file it may create in a new project, while the user will be left thinking the file tree is stale (which happens sometimes) or as if there's an issue

Using the terminal as my file tree day to day is a bit silly imho

I also think this should be configurable in the settings and left up to the user, especially if it was originally implemented for security and data privacy reasons.

+1 to this, if the agent is able to modify these hidden folders, and they appear as being "modified" in the "changed files" UI, you should also be able to get to the same things from the "all files" option

@etraut-openai +1. this is by far the last blocker preventing me from migrating most of daily dev work from cursor/vscode -> codex app as a simplified IDE. At least it should be an option, not completely blocked out. thanks

at least there must be a toggle button in settings which enables to see hidden files(like .env). it seems to be crucial for the user who knows what they are doing(like programmers)

The current behavior is intended, so we don't consider this a bug. I've changed it to a feature request, and we can see if other users upvote it.

Since agent skills are foundational to a ai native codebase, and codex recommends skills in .agents/skills/ , how do we expect users to view skill files? I can understand hiding .codex/ and .git/ , but skills are foundational to how codebases are setup now.

/ @etraut-openai

Not being able to view skill and agent files in the app is terrible UX @etraut-openai

I was baffled to find that there's no way to show all files in the files panel. There are _tons_ of relevant files that start with . in practically every repo. Being unable to browse them, especially when the agent can edit them, is most definitely a bug. If it's "intended behavior" then it's a design bug, because it prevents developers from doing work on whole parts of their codebases if a tool they use (including codex!) uses directories that start with .

We are hitting the same issue in daily Codex Desktop usage.

This is especially painful because hidden project directories are not edge cases for Codex workflows: .codex, .agents, .github, .vscode, .env.example, and similar files/folders often contain the actual agent/project configuration we need to inspect while working.

In our case, the agent and terminal can read these files normally, but the right-side file tree makes the workspace look incomplete. That mismatch is confusing: the project exists, Codex can operate on it, but the user cannot browse the full project state from the app UI.

A visible "Show hidden files / Show dotfiles" toggle, or making "Show all files" actually include dotfiles, would make the Desktop app much more usable for real agent/codebase workflows.

.files and .folders are now being displayed in my copy version 26.707.41301 of the new ChatGPT/Codex desktop on macOS. The issue now is that ALL .files including .DS_Store are visible in every directory.

This should be configurable, to both include and exclude, with good defaults. For example, .DS_Store rarely makes sense to show so by default even if show hidden files are default, it would not show this (or other types of system-only files not useful for Codex/Work).

All of these other hidden and .files should be visible by default, unless excluded by a config, e.g. .gitignore .prettierignore tmp (hidden)

<img width="238" height="476" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/cb76b394-106e-4ab4-ae73-45d7176890a9" />