Codex Desktop shows growing number of phantom working subagents

Open 💬 1 comment Opened Aug 14, 2026 by kudlaiyevhendev-cpu
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

<img width="1835" height="970" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0aa085e6-9347-4987-be0f-071c56ecda33" />
<img width="1835" height="970" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2b628a06-3356-4ab9-b25b-b0eacb5bdfa9" />

In the AILAB-002 Codex chat, all subagents have completed and the live agent
registry reports no active child agents — only the root agent exists.

However, the Subagents panel initially displayed:

  • 31 working
  • 14 done

After fully quitting and reopening ChatGPT Desktop, the same chat displayed:

  • 45 working

No new subagents were started between these observations.

Expected:
The panel should show 0 working subagents, or otherwise accurately reflect
the live agent registry.

Actual:
The number of “working” subagents increased from 31 to 45 after restarting
the application.

This looks like stale or duplicated subagent state being restored by the
desktop UI.

Environment:

  • OS: Linux
  • Date: 2026-08-14
  • Chat: AILAB-002
  • App version: [add version from Settings/About]

View original on GitHub ↗

1 Comment

github-actions[bot] contributor · 13 days ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

  • #38408
  • #38364
  • #38478
  • #38533
  • #37426

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