Support concurrent user edits while Codex is applying file changes

What variant of Codex are you using?

VS Code IDE Extension on macOS

What feature would you like to see?

When I ask Codex to modify a file, it often takes several seconds (or longer) to generate and apply the changes.

During that time, I naturally continue making small manual edits to the same file, such as fixing wording, correcting typos, or reorganizing text. This is especially common when editing Markdown documents and long-form articles.

When Codex finishes and writes its changes, VS Code frequently reports save conflicts and opens a diff/merge view because both Codex and I modified the same file.

I would love to see better support for this collaborative editing workflow.

Possible improvements could include:

• Checking whether the file has changed immediately before applying edits.
• Reloading the latest version if the file was modified during the task.
• Reapplying Codex's changes to the latest version whenever possible.
• Delaying the write if the user is actively editing the file.
• Falling back to a merge or confirmation dialog only when automatic reconciliation is not possible.

This would allow users to continue making small edits while Codex is working without frequently encountering save conflicts.

I believe this would significantly improve the experience of human-AI collaborative editing.

Additional information

Environment

• Codex – OpenAI's coding agent
• Version: 26.715.61943
• Visual Studio Code
• Version: 1.129.1
• macOS 26 (Darwin arm64 25.5.0)

Workflow

This happens frequently while writing Markdown documents and technical articles.

A typical workflow is:

1. Ask Codex to modify a Markdown document.
2. Codex starts working.
3. While waiting, I continue making small manual edits to the same file.
4. Codex applies its changes.
5. VS Code reports save conflicts and opens the diff view.

I also use Claude Code in the same VS Code environment.

One difference I've noticed is that Claude Code often appears to avoid writing immediately while I'm actively editing the same file, so save conflicts occur much less frequently.

I'm not requesting identical behavior, but I think improving how Codex handles concurrent user edits would make the editing experience much smoother.