[macOS][ChatGPT Work] Computer Use is not injected; turn stays active and app must be force-quit

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

26.803.41515 (build 6321)

Bundled Codex CLI: 0.147.0-alpha.6.5
Bundled Computer Use plugin: 1.0.1000633

What subscription do you have?

Not specified.

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.6.0 arm64 arm

macOS 26.6.0, Apple Silicon.

What issue are you seeing?

In the unified ChatGPT/Codex macOS desktop app, ChatGPT Work does not inject the enabled Computer Use / node_repl capability into a new Work conversation.

Work instead replies that Computer Use is unavailable or was not loaded for the conversation. After the text response appears, the turn does not finalize: the stop button and sidebar spinner remain active. The window then becomes operationally unusable—the red close button and normal controls do not respond—and the entire ChatGPT process must be force-quit.

This reproduces on every Work attempt tested.

The failure is isolated to Work mode:

• Cmd+Cmd Appshot works normally.
• Computer Use works normally from a Codex task in the same app and installation.
• The official bundled Computer Use plugin is installed and enabled.
• The bundled node_repl, Node runtime, and Computer Use paths are present and report healthy startup status.
• The failure remains after third-party routing software is fully quit and the app is using its bundled native Codex runtime.

Observed with 5.6 Luna Fast. I have not established whether the selected model route is causal.

Example Work responses:

The current conversation did not load Computer Use, so I cannot directly open Calculator.

Computer Use is not available in this conversation, so I cannot open and play the playlist for you.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Launch ChatGPT Desktop on macOS and wait for startup/plugin reconciliation to finish.
2. Confirm that Appshot works and that Computer Use works from a Codex task.
3. Switch to ChatGPT Work.
4. Open the Computer Use plugin and select Try now, or create a fresh Work conversation.
5. Send: Open Calculator.
6. The assistant responds that Computer Use was not loaded or is unavailable.
7. Observe that no Computer Use / node_repl tool invocation occurs.
8. Observe that the stop button and sidebar spinner remain active after the text response.
9. Attempt to close the window normally. The UI no longer responds and ChatGPT must be force-quit.

The same behavior also reproduced with:

Play a playlist to help me lock in

Identifiers for OpenAI-side correlation:

Work turn:
conversation-turn-6e32fdb5-d5fc-420d-a0b6-dfcc8f5a7e67

Local Work route:
local-chatgpt:6766310c-4fa6-45d5-9949-7ff12d038174

What is the expected behavior?

• A new eligible ChatGPT Work conversation should receive the installed and enabled Computer Use / node_repl capability.
• Open Calculator should invoke Computer Use and open Calculator.
• If capability injection fails, the turn should terminate with a recoverable error.
• A failed tool request must not leave the conversation permanently active or make the desktop window require Force Quit.

Additional information

Local diagnostic evidence from the failing session:

• The Work route and IAB backend initialized successfully.
• The failed turn subscribed to its conversation-turn topic.
• No matching Computer Use / node_repl invocation was logged.
• No normal completion, failure, cancellation, or turn-topic unsubscribe event was found for that turn.
• The process was force-quit; no renderer crash report was produced.
• Appshot completed successfully in the same desktop process shortly after the Work failure, so the native capture integration was still functional.

Configuration clarification:

ChatGPT 26.803 intentionally writes a disabled mcp_servers.computer-use compatibility entry for the current node-repl Computer Use variant. The active path is the enabled node_repl server. Removing that disabled compatibility entry is not a fix; the app recreates it during startup by design.

Related reports:

• #37626 — Windows Work mode does not receive the enabled Chrome capability even though it works in Codex. This looks like the same Work capability-routing family, but this report covers macOS Computer Use plus the unfinished-turn/Force Quit failure.
• #33599 — desktop tasks silently fail to receive node_repl. In this report, Codex tasks receive Computer Use successfully and only ChatGPT Work fails.
• #37036 — task-type-specific node_repl provisioning differences on macOS.

Please inspect both:

1. Work-mode capability/tool-set assembly for the Computer Use node_repl variant.
2. Work turn finalization when a requested local capability is absent or not injected.