Windows Computer Use disappears after mobile pairing; native pipe helper metadata stops being published

What version of the Codex App are you using?

OpenAI.Codex_26.527.3686.0_x64

Computer Use plugin cache observed locally: 26.527.31326

What platform is your computer?

Windows x64, Windows-native Codex Desktop session. This is not a WSL-mode report.

What issue are you seeing?

Computer Use initially worked in Codex Desktop, then stopped working during the same Desktop session. After the failure, both Computer Use and Chrome disappeared from the Plugins UI even though they had been available earlier.

A second user reported a similar sequence after binding the Windows Codex Desktop app with an iOS/mobile device. My local sequence also matches that correlation: Computer Use worked at first, I later connected/paired the mobile side, and after a while the Computer Use plugin disappeared from the UI and native pipe bootstrap started failing.

This does not look like a simple missing plugin file on disk. The helper files still existed under the bundled plugin cache. The failure looks more like Codex Desktop stopped publishing/injecting the Computer Use native pipe/helper metadata into the runtime, or bundled plugin reconciliation dropped the bundled plugins from the active UI/state.

Observed log sequence

Earlier in the same Desktop session, Computer Use successfully started and created a native pipe, for example:

computer-use native pipe startup ready
\\.\pipe\codex-computer-use-...

Later in the same session, logs showed:

computer-use native pipe helper paths changed
reason=missing-helper-path
Windows Computer Use helper paths are unavailable

After that, Computer Use bootstrap failed with:

Computer Use native pipe path is unavailable

The runtime environment no longer had:

SKY_CUA_NATIVE_PIPE_DIRECTORY

Around the same time, logs also showed bundled plugin reconciliation / cache issues, including Windows file lock patterns such as:

EBUSY: resource busy or locked
plugin_cache_windows_file_lock

Expected behavior

If Computer Use was available earlier in the same Desktop session, the Desktop host should keep publishing the native pipe/helper metadata required by the Computer Use runtime, or recover/recreate it cleanly after plugin reconciliation or mobile pairing.

The Plugins UI should not silently drop bundled plugins such as Computer Use and Chrome while their files still exist in the bundled plugin cache.

Actual behavior

• Computer Use works initially.
• Later, after Desktop activity including mobile/iOS pairing correlation, bundled plugin/cache reconciliation appears to run.
• Computer Use helper paths change to missing.
• SKY_CUA_NATIVE_PIPE_DIRECTORY is no longer injected into the execution environment.
• Computer Use bootstrap fails with Computer Use native pipe path is unavailable.
• Computer Use and Chrome disappear from the Plugins UI.

Why I am opening this separately from #25391

#25391 has started to mix several different failure shapes, including WSL-mode path resolution. My case is Windows-native and focuses on runtime loss of native pipe/helper metadata plus bundled plugin disappearance after Computer Use had already worked earlier.

Related: #25391