New chat reuses the last active workspace folder without clear confirmation

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Codex Desktop for Windows, observed from installed package path:

OpenAI.Codex_26.527.7698.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0

codex --version could not be run directly because Windows blocked execution from the WindowsApps package path with Access is denied.

What subscription do you have?

Unknown.

What platform is your computer?

Windows:

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0

What issue are you seeing?

When starting a new chat in Codex Desktop, the new chat still has the last active folder/workspace open.

This is confusing because the conversation appears to be a fresh chat, but it is still operating in the previous workspace context. That makes it easy to assume the new chat is neutral while Codex can still read or modify files from the last folder.

Example observed workspace path pattern:

C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Codex\2026-06-02\waar-ik-tegen-aan-loop-als

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open Codex Desktop on Windows.
2. Use a chat with an active workspace/folder.
3. Start a new chat.
4. Observe that the new chat still has the previously used folder as the active workspace.

What is the expected behavior?

A new chat should not silently reuse the previous workspace/folder without clear confirmation.

Expected behavior could be one of:

1. Start the new chat without an active workspace until the user chooses one.
2. Prompt the user to choose or confirm the workspace for the new chat.
3. If reusing the last workspace is intentional, make the active folder much more prominent before the first message is sent.

Why this matters

The current behavior increases the risk that Codex reads or edits files in the wrong folder. It also makes the mental model of "new chat" unclear: the chat is new, but the filesystem context is not.

Additional information

This report was filed from a Codex Desktop session where the active working directory remained set to the previous folder even though the user expected a newly started chat to be independent.