Windows Desktop WSL mode: Git watcher retries EISDIR ~6 times/sec on WSL repositories

Summary

When Codex Desktop for Windows runs its agent in WSL2 and opens a repository stored on the native WSL filesystem, the Windows-side Git repository watcher enters a persistent retry loop.

The watcher tries to watch the WSL repository through a \\wsl$\... UNC path, receives EISDIR, restarts, and retries several times per second. The loop continues even while the thread is idle and is associated with sustained Desktop/UI lag and unnecessary CPU, filesystem, and log activity.

Local Git commands executed inside WSL remain fast, so the repository's Linux filesystem performance is not the bottleneck.

Environment

• Codex Desktop: 26.715.2305
• Bundled WSL app-server: codex-cli 0.145.0-alpha.18
• Windows 11
• WSL2 with Ubuntu
• Agent environment: WSL
• Repository location: native WSL filesystem, e.g. /home/<wsl-user>/projects/example
• Desktop Codex home exposed to WSL as /mnt/c/Users/<windows-user>/.codex
• SQLite state separated to a WSL-native directory

Reproduction

1. Configure Codex Desktop on Windows to run the agent in WSL.
2. Open a Git repository stored under /home/<wsl-user>/... through the Windows project picker.
3. Start a local task, or leave the loaded thread idle.
4. Inspect the Codex Desktop logs.

Actual behavior

The Windows Electron worker repeatedly attempts to watch paths resembling:

\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<wsl-user>\projects\example\.git
\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<wsl-user>\projects\example\.git\refs
\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<wsl-user>\projects\example\.git\refs\heads
\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<wsl-user>\projects\example\.git\info
\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<wsl-user>\projects\example

Each attempt fails with an error resembling:

[git-repo-watcher] Failed to watch git path
errorCode=EISDIR
errorMessage="EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, watch '\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<wsl-user>\projects\example\.git'"

Measurements from one approximately 31-minute run:

• 10,678 watcher failures
• 294–354 failures per minute
• Approximately 5.8 failures per second
• 30 logged watcher restarts
• A roughly 10 MB Desktop log with 10,908 lines, almost entirely watcher failures
• The retry loop continued between active agent turns

During the same session, ordinary Git inspection commands inside WSL completed in approximately 0.5–3.7 seconds.

Expected behavior

Codex Desktop should either:

• use a WSL-side filesystem watcher for repositories stored in WSL;
• use a Windows watcher implementation that correctly supports WSL UNC directories; or
• disable watching after a non-recoverable path-type error instead of retrying continuously.

Opening a native WSL repository should not create a persistent high-frequency watcher/error loop.

Related issues

• #21693 — Windows worker attempts to watch Linux/WSL Git paths
• #13764 — severe lag and resource usage in Windows Desktop WSL mode
• #22085 — repeated Git activity causing sustained CPU usage
• #18506 — WSL UNC path, config, terminal, and worktree boundary problems

The paths and measurements above are sanitized; no private repository, organization, username, thread identifier, or raw log is included.