[Windows] Bundled Chrome / Computer Use plugins appear to reinstall on every app launch, with runtime assets recreated under .codex\.tmp and plugins\cache

What version of Codex is running?

Codex Desktop 0.136.0-alpha.2

Which model were you using?

Not model-specific. This appears to happen on app launch before normal usage.

What OS are you using?

Windows 11

What happened?

On my Windows machine, after restarting the computer and opening Codex again, the bundled Chrome and Computer Use plugins appear to be downloaded/installed again every time.

From the UI perspective, it looks like I have to re-download or re-install these plugins repeatedly, even though they were already installed before.

After local investigation, this does not look like a true fresh network download each time. It looks more like Codex is re-deploying bundled plugin assets on each launch.

What did you expect to happen?

I expected bundled plugins like chrome@openai-bundled and computer-use@openai-bundled to stay installed and reusable across restarts without appearing to reinstall every launch.

Reproduction steps

1. Install/enable bundled Chrome and Computer Use plugins in Codex Desktop on Windows.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Open Codex Desktop again.
4. Observe that the plugins appear to be installed/downloaded again.

Evidence from local investigation

The plugins are already enabled in persistent config:

C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\config.toml

[plugins."browser@openai-bundled"]
enabled = true

[plugins."computer-use@openai-bundled"]
enabled = true

[plugins."chrome@openai-bundled"]
enabled = true

The bundled marketplace source is configured to a runtime temp directory:

C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\config.toml

[marketplaces.openai-bundled]
source_type = "local"
source = '\\?\C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\.tmp\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled'

The app package itself already contains the bundled plugins under:

C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\OpenAI.Codex_26.601.2237.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0\app\resources\plugins\openai-bundled

On launch, the runtime marketplace is recreated under:

C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\.tmp\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled

Then plugin cache/runtime directories are recreated under:

• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\browser
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\computer-use
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\chrome

A strong sign that this happens on each launch is that the creation times of these directories match the app startup time.

Examples observed on my machine on June 3, 2026:

• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\.tmp\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled
• CreationTime: 2026/6/3 23:44:19
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\browser\26.601.21317
• CreationTime: 2026/6/3 23:44:21
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\computer-use\26.601.21317
• CreationTime: 2026/6/3 23:44:39
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\chrome\26.601.21317
• CreationTime: 2026/6/3 23:45:15
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\chrome\latest
• CreationTime: 2026/6/3 23:45:15

Also, file hashes show that the runtime copy matches the packaged bundled plugin content, so this looks like a copy/deploy step rather than a normal user reinstall:

• Packaged plugin:
• C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\OpenAI.Codex_26.601.2237.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0\app\resources\plugins\openai-bundled\plugins\chrome\.codex-plugin\plugin.json
• Runtime marketplace copy:
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\.tmp\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled\plugins\chrome\.codex-plugin\plugin.json
• Cache copy:
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\chrome\26.601.21317\.codex-plugin\plugin.json

The two chrome plugin JSON files in package/runtime/cache matched by hash on my machine.

Additional notes

This also creates duplicate local copies of bundled assets:

• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\.tmp\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled was about 65.71 MB
• C:\Users\luoshu\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled was about 18.31 MB

So this is both:

1. a UX issue because it looks like plugins reinstall every launch
2. a storage/runtime behavior question because bundled assets are recopied into user directories each time

Question

Is this expected behavior for bundled plugins on Windows, or is Codex incorrectly re-deploying chrome / computer-use on each launch?