[VS Code][Regression] Changed-files review bar prevents the active Subagents panel from appearing

What version of the IDE extension are you using?

openai.chatgpt-26.727.40816-linux-x64

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro 5x

Which IDE are you using?

Visual Studio Code 1.131.0 (x64), Remote - WSL

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

When the current Codex session already has one or more edited files, spawning a native subagent does not make the active Subagents / background agents panel appear above the composer.

In the captured reproduction, the main agent first created item-1-ledger.md. This produced the following changed-files Review bar:

1 file changed +44 -0 Review

The main agent then spawned a coder subagent. The transcript displayed “Created an agent”, the subagent thread ID, and a message stating that the coder pass was running.

However, the Subagents panel did not appear. The area above the composer continued to show only the changed-files Review bar.

Actual behavior

The transcript confirms that a native subagent was successfully created and is running, but the persistent Subagents panel is absent.

As a result, the user cannot:

• see the active subagent in the background-agent UI;
• inspect its status;
• open its thread;
• distinguish active and completed agents;
• stop an active subagent.

The changed-files Review bar appears to occupy or suppress the composer-adjacent area where the Subagents panel would normally be displayed.

Impact

This prevents users from monitoring delegated work during normal implementation tasks, where edited files are commonly present.

The inline “Created an agent” event confirms that delegation occurred, but it does not provide the persistent status, navigation, and control functionality of the Subagents panel.

It also becomes unclear whether the subagent is running, waiting, completed, failed, or blocked.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open a repository in Visual Studio Code through Remote - WSL.
2. Open a Codex session in the VS Code extension.
3. Have the main agent create or modify a file.
4. Confirm that the changed-files Review bar appears above the composer, for example: 1 file changed +44 -0 Review.
5. While the Review bar is visible, ask the main agent to spawn a native subagent for a sufficiently long-running task.
6. Confirm that the transcript displays “Created an agent”, a subagent thread ID, and a message indicating that the subagent is running.
7. Inspect the area above the composer.
8. Observe that only the changed-files Review bar is visible and the active Subagents/background-agents panel is absent.

What is the expected behavior?

The changed-files Review bar and the active Subagents panel should remain accessible at the same time.

When a native subagent is spawned, the background-agent UI should update immediately and display that agent above the composer, regardless of whether the current task has edited files.

The user should be able to:

• see all active and completed subagents;
• inspect each subagent's status;
• open an individual subagent thread;
• stop an active subagent when supported;
• continue accessing the changed-files Review action.

The two panels may be stacked, displayed as separate collapsible sections, or combined into another layout, but neither surface should suppress the other.

The Subagents panel should appear without requiring the user to leave and reopen the session.

Additional information

Environment

• Bundled runtime: codex-cli 0.146.0-alpha.9.2
• VS Code commit: e4c7e7b1d6d060162f4aa7f8225271b67ce1df75
• Remote environment: WSL2
• WSL distribution: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
• WSL kernel: 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2
• Selected model during the reproduction: GPT-5.5

Related issue

This may be related to #33859:

https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/33859

That issue reports that the VS Code background-agent panel does not update when native subagents are spawned.

This report adds a more specific condition: the session already has a visible changed-files Review bar when the subagent is created, and the Subagents panel does not appear alongside it.

Documentation

The Codex documentation describes active subagents as appearing above the composer when the background-agent UI is available:

https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/agent-configuration/subagents

Screenshot

The screenshot shows the “Created an agent” event, the running coder subagent, the changed-files Review bar, and the missing Subagents panel.

<img width="356" height="317" alt="Codex VS Code extension showing a running subagent and changed-files Review bar, but no Subagents panel" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/972961d0-a530-42b0-b93c-659b45aa47d2" />