BUG: --full-auto does not set 'on-failure' APPROVAL_POLICY as per --help

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Sep 15, 2025 by ben-vargas Closed Nov 3, 2025

What version of Codex is running?

0.36.0

Which model were you using?

gpt-5-codex

What platform is your computer?

Linux 6.8.0-79-generic x86_64 x86_64

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Start codex with codex --full-auto and once TUI loads run /status and note the Approval Mode:

  • Approval Mode: on-request
  • Sandbox: workspace-write

Running codex --help the --full-auto is supposed to be setting APPROVAL_POLICY to on-failure:

      --full-auto
          Convenience alias for low-friction sandboxed automatic execution (-a on-failure, --sandbox workspace-write)

What is the expected behavior?

As documented in codex --help the --full-auto flag should run codex as follows -

  • Approval Mode: on-failure
  • Sandbox: workspace-write

What do you see instead?

Approval mode runs in on-request instead of on-failure in --full-auto.

Additional information

codex-rs/tui/src/lib.rs:92 should use AskForApproval::OnFailure rather than AskForApproval::OnRequest

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

ben-vargas · 11 months ago

Maybe this was actually an intended change but--help wasn't properly updated? It appears #3608 changed this but didn't fix documentation/help and wasn't communicated in release notes?

ben-vargas · 11 months ago

I've been working around this issue when using codex by adding the following to my ~/.codex/config.toml and not using codex --full-auto anymore. Since an OAI employee changed it on purpose in PR to 0.36.0, but probably forgot to change help output and documentation - it may be working as OAI intends.

But, just putting this default in the config.toml or setting up equivalent flags as an alias, is a reasonable workaround if they do intend to change --full-auto to use on-request approvals going forward.

# Allow workspace write and only prompt for approval on failure.
sandbox_mode    = "workspace-write"
approval_policy = "on-failure"

ben-vargas · 9 months ago

closed the PR sitting untouched for a month and a half, i guess someone else can fix it if its an issue anyone cares about