Windows desktop app: enabling bundled Sites plugin causes infinite cmd.exe/node.exe spawn loop

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

OpenAI.Codex_26.707.6957.0

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT subscription (plan not specified)

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Enabling the bundled Sites plugin causes the ChatGPT/Codex Windows desktop app to continuously launch large numbers of cmd.exe and node.exe processes. Windows becomes unresponsive and the app cannot be closed normally.

Observed: hundreds of cmd.exe instances beginning at app startup; a ChatGPT subprocess approached 1 GB private memory; diagnostics timed out or were denied while the system was overloaded.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. In ~/.codex/config.toml, set [plugins."sites@openai-bundled"] enabled = true.
2. Launch the ChatGPT/Codex desktop app on Windows.
3. Observe cmd.exe and node.exe processes continuously spawning until Windows becomes unresponsive.

What is the expected behavior?

At most one stable MCP Node process should be started for the Sites design picker. The app must not repeatedly spawn cmd.exe/node.exe processes or consume system resources indefinitely.

Additional information

Bundled plugin version: sites@openai-bundled 0.1.27.

Workaround: set [plugins."sites@openai-bundled"] enabled = false. Immediately after disabling it, cmd.exe and node.exe process counts returned to 0 and the app became usable.

Plugin detail: .mcp.json starts node ./mcp/server.mjs. The server source contains no child_process usage or restart loop, suggesting an MCP-host startup/handshake retry loop on Windows.