Codex App hides VS Code and terminal buttons when workspace is not a Git repository

Open 💬 2 comments Opened Jun 16, 2026 by ladyrick

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.609.71450

What subscription do you have?

Pro 20x

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

In the Codex App, the top-right "Open in VS Code" button and terminal open button disappear when the current workspace directory is not a Git repository.

The underlying local workspace and terminal still work. For example, Codex can run commands in the directory successfully, but the UI buttons are hidden.

Once the same/current directory is a Git repository, those buttons appear again.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Open Codex App with a local directory that is not a Git repository.
Start a chat/thread in that directory.
Observe the top-right UI actions.
The "Open in VS Code" button and terminal open button are not shown.
Initialize or use a directory that is a Git repository.
Observe that the buttons appear.

What is the expected behavior?

The VS Code and terminal buttons should be shown for any valid local workspace directory, even if it is not a Git repository.

A directory does not need to be a Git repo in order to open it in VS Code or open a terminal there.

Additional information

This was observed in a local workspace at:

/Users/xxx/code/yyyyyy

That directory was not a Git repository, and git remote -v returned:

fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

However, the Codex thread was still able to run shell commands in that directory successfully.

View original on GitHub ↗

2 Comments

greg-court · 14 days ago

Adding a concrete nested-repository use case where this behavior is particularly limiting:

A Codex project may intentionally point at an organizational container directory that is not itself a Git repository (for example, a customer/project folder containing documentation and multiple child repositories). One or more nested directories are valid Git repositories and are the actual code being edited. In this layout, the top-level folder should not be initialized as an artificial Git repository merely to make the editor launcher appear.

Please consider making the editor launcher available or configurable for every valid local project, independently of Git detection. Ideally the project setting could choose the launch target: the configured project root, the current task working directory, or a detected nested repository. Git-specific review/worktree controls can remain gated separately.

Observed on the Codex desktop app for macOS with VS Code installed and the code CLI available.

itsamk · 7 days ago

Since the most recent release, facing the same issue. Even when workspace is a git repository - the issue stays the same. No option to open in VS Code and no option to open terminal.