Ctrl+F does not move the cursor forward in the Codex composer in vscode

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Apr 21, 2026 by luk3ya0 Closed Apr 22, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of the IDE extension are you using?

26.417.40842

What subscription do you have?

On macOS, Ctrl+F does not move the cursor forward by one character inside the Codex chat/composer input.

Which IDE are you using?

VS Code

What platform is your computer?

macOS

What issue are you seeing?

Ctrl+F can not move the cursor right while focusing on the textarea of Codex in vscode

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Summary

On macOS, Ctrl+F does not move the cursor forward by one character inside the Codex chat/composer input.

This is unexpected because Ctrl+F is a standard macOS / Emacs-style text navigation shortcut (forward-char) and it works correctly in VS Code's built-in AI Chat input on the same machine.

Environment

  • VS Code: [your VS Code version]
  • OpenAI / Codex extension: 26.417.40842
  • OS: macOS [your macOS version]

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open the Codex chat/sidebar in VS Code
  2. Focus the message composer/input box
  3. Type some text
  4. Press Ctrl+F

Expected behavior

The text cursor should move one character to the right, consistent with standard macOS text navigation behavior and consistent with VS Code's built-in AI Chat input.

Actual behavior

Nothing happens.

Additional notes

  • This is reproducible in the Codex composer, but not in VS Code's built-in AI Chat input on the same machine.
  • That suggests the issue is specific to the Codex composer/editor layer rather than a global VS Code keybinding problem.
  • From local debugging, this seems related to the Codex composer using a custom webview/editor input path that does not currently handle macOS / Emacs-style cursor navigation keys such as Ctrl+F.
  • A local experiment suggested that handling Ctrl+F directly in the composer/editor keydown path restores the expected behavior.

Possible direction

It may be worth making the Codex composer match standard macOS text navigation behavior for shortcuts like:

  • Ctrl+F → forward-char
  • Ctrl+B → backward-char
  • Ctrl+A → beginning-of-line
  • Ctrl+E → end-of-line

What is the expected behavior?

  • Ctrl+F → forward-char
  • Ctrl+B → backward-char
  • Ctrl+A → beginning-of-line
  • Ctrl+E → end-of-line

Additional information

The Codex composer appears to use a custom webview editor instead of Monaco/native editor keybindings, and it does not currently handle standard macOS/Emacs-style Ctrl+F cursor navigation inside the composer.

View original on GitHub ↗

2 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 4 months ago

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

  • #17114

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luk3ya0 · 4 months ago
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate. * Control-F shortcut for find conflicts with system binding for "move forward one character" #17114 _Powered by Codex Action_

Thanks for pointing that out! I'll follow the original issue for updates. Looking forward to the fix.