Windows elevated sandbox delays every shell_command by ~88 seconds before process creation; unelevated is immediate

What version of Codex CLI is running?

0.144.0

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

Which model were you using?

gpt-5.6-sol

What platform is your computer?

_No response_

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

_No response_

Codex doctor report

What issue are you seeing?

Summary

On native Windows, every shell_command invocation is delayed for approximately 88 seconds when the Windows sandbox is configured as elevated.

The delay occurs before powershell.exe is created. PowerShell startup and the requested script itself are fast once the process is finally launched.

Changing only the Windows sandbox mode from elevated to unelevated resolves the problem immediately.

Timing breakdown

For one representative invocation, the total duration was 88.85 seconds:

• Tool request to powershell.exe process creation: 88.03 seconds
• PowerShell process creation to script entry: 0.61 seconds
• Actual script execution: 0.077 seconds
• Result return: approximately 0.13 seconds

A non-shell tool invocation completed in approximately 22 ms, so the general tool system was responsive.

The abnormal delay is isolated to the shell_command execution path after the request is submitted but before the PowerShell process is created.

Observed behavior

With:

[windows]
sandbox = "elevated"

even trivial commands such as:

Write-Output "OK"
or reading a small local file take approximately 88–90 seconds.

The file read or PowerShell command itself is not slow. Almost the entire delay occurs before process creation.

With:

[windows]
sandbox = "unelevated"

### What steps can reproduce the bug?

[windows]
sandbox = "unelevated"

### What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

### Additional information

_No response_