[P0][app][macOS][26.810.52044] Launching desktop app immediately spikes mds_stores to 250–700% CPU; host becomes unusable until ChatGPT.app is force-quit

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

26.810.52044 (6662)

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm
macOS 26.5.2 (25F84), Apple Silicon

What issue are you seeing?

This is a host-killer, not a UI glitch.

Launching the unified ChatGPT / Codex desktop app on macOS immediately drives Apple Spotlight (mds / mds_stores / a pile of mdworkers) to 250–700% CPU. The rest of the machine becomes unusable: fans scream, input lags, other apps hitch. The only reliable recovery is to force-quit ChatGPT.app and keep it from launching again.

This is not “Spotlight indexing in the background for a minute.” It starts the instant the desktop app launches, and it stays pathological. On an always-on engineering Mac this is a production outage of the computer, not a Codex inconvenience.

We had to disable desktop autostart and leave the desktop app off. The CLI still works. Computer Use is completely blocked, because Computer Use only lives in the desktop app and that app cannot be left running.

Independent reports on the same or adjacent 26.810.x builds show the same mds_stores explosion and tie it to a Computer Use helper spawn storm (SkyComputerUseService respawning into the hundreds). See:

• https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/38771
• https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/38769
• https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/38720
• https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/38760

Please treat this as P0 for macOS desktop. A coding app that bricks Spotlight on launch cannot ship as a daily driver.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Start from a working Mac. Confirm mds_stores is idle.
2. Launch /Applications/ChatGPT.app (unified ChatGPT + Codex desktop, 26.810.52044).
3. Do not start a task. Do not click Computer Use. Just let the app come up.
4. Watch Activity Monitor.

Observed on this host immediately after launch:

• mds_stores jumps to hundreds of percent CPU (we have seen ~700% class load; peer reports on the same build measure 250–650%+).
• Multiple mdworker processes appear.
• The desktop app has already started Computer Use machinery (~/.codex/computer-use → ~/.codex/computer-use-runtime, SkyComputerUseService).
• Quitting ChatGPT.app is the only way to get the machine back.

Measured local amplifier (does not explain the bug by itself):

• ~/.codex is ~85 GB.
• Spotlight already had ~410,000 files indexed under ~/.codex.
• .metadata_never_index has been present in ~/.codex since 2026-08-14. macOS is ignoring it. Spotlight still reindexes that tree when the desktop app starts writing.
• ~/Library/Application Support/Codex is not the problem (0 Spotlight hits).

A reporter in #38771 reproduced the same mds_stores 250–650% spike on a fresh ~/.codex. Locking ~/.codex/computer-use (chmod 000) stopped SkyComputerUseService and stopped the Spotlight spike. Restoring Computer Use brought both back immediately.

So this is not “my folder is big.” Computer Use launch on desktop start is triggering a system-wide Spotlight / metadata storm.

What is the expected behavior?

Opening the desktop app must not:

• spawn Computer Use helpers until the user actually starts Computer Use
• respawn SkyComputerUseService in a loop
• write a file storm into ~/.codex that Spotlight then reindexes at 250–700% CPU
• make the entire Mac unusable

If Computer Use is disabled or unused, it must stay fully inert.

The CLI must remain usable without the desktop app. That part already works. The desktop app is the broken surface.

Additional information

Urgency

This is an always-on Apple Silicon host. A single desktop launch takes the machine down. We have now disabled ChatGPT.app at login and will not turn it back on until this is fixed. That means:

• no Computer Use
• no desktop Codex UI
• no in-app feedback from the desktop app (filing here instead)

What we will not do

We will not keep launching the desktop app “to collect more traces.” Each launch is a host incident.

Ask

1. Stop auto-starting Computer Use / SkyComputerUseService on desktop launch.
2. Fix the spawn storm so one helper cannot become hundreds.
3. Stop writing indexable junk into ~/.codex on idle launch, or exclude that tree from Spotlight yourselves. .metadata_never_index is not sufficient.
4. Ship a 26.810.x hotfix. This build is not safe to leave running on macOS.

Related but not the same ticket: #29876 (mds_stores disk I/O while Codex runs), #26843 (older write-storm, marked logging-related). This report is specifically launch-time mds_stores CPU runaway caused by desktop Computer Use coming up uninvited.