agents.max_depth = 1 permits child-to-grandchild spawning in 0.144.1

Codex version

Codex CLI 0.144.1, macOS arm64. This is the latest stable GitHub release as of 2026-07-10.

Configuration

[agents]
max_depth = 1
max_threads = 50

The configuration passes:

codex --strict-config --version

with:

codex-cli 0.144.1

There is no project-local Codex config overriding the user-level agents table.

Reproduction

1. Start a fresh Codex task.
2. Have the root thread spawn one direct child.
3. Have that child make exactly one no-op subagent spawn attempt.
4. Observe that the spawn succeeds and the grandchild runs.

Observed spawned path shape:

/root/explorer_depth_probe/noop

The grandchild returned only NOOP, so the probe made no repository or external changes.

Expected behavior

The official Subagents documentation says agents.max_depth defaults to 1, the root starts at depth 0, and max_depth = 1 lets the root spawn direct children while preventing those children from spawning deeper descendants:

https://developers.openai.com/codex/subagents

Actual behavior

A direct child successfully spawned a grandchild despite agents.max_depth = 1.

Additional verification

• All custom agent TOMLs parse.
• The user config contains exactly agents.max_depth = 1.
• Codex strict config accepts the setting.
• No custom agent file defines another agents table or overrides max_depth.
• The no-op grandchild completed successfully, so this was not only a UI display artifact.