Feature request: Quick switch for Codex Desktop sandbox permission

Open 💬 1 comment Opened Aug 23, 2026 by fxhuanghfx
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What variant of Codex are you using?

Codex Desktop app on macOS.

What feature would you like to see?

Please make the current Sandbox Settings permission visible and quickly switchable from the main Codex UI, instead of requiring repeated navigation through:

Settings → Configuration → Sandbox Settings

A common structured workflow alternates between:

  • Read only for planning, review, and validation
  • Workspace write for implementation, testing, fixes, and artifact updates

In workflows that deliberately separate planning from execution, I may need to switch these modes repeatedly. Going through multiple Settings menus each time adds friction and increases the chance of starting a task with the wrong effective sandbox permission.

A useful UI could be a compact control near the active chat/session header, for example:

Sandbox: Read only ▾

or

Sandbox: Workspace write ▾

Possible behavior:

  • one-click switching between Read only and Workspace write
  • always show the currently effective sandbox permission
  • optional confirmation when switching to a more permissive mode
  • optional keyboard shortcut
  • warn when the active session/workflow expects a different sandbox permission than the current effective setting

Why this matters

A professional engineering workflow often looks like:

read-only planning → workspace-write implementation → read-only review/preflight → workspace-write fixes

Making sandbox permission obvious and quick to change would reduce UI friction while improving safety, because users are less likely to execute a task under the wrong permission mode.

The request is not to weaken sandbox security. It is to make the current effective permission easy to see and intentionally change without repeatedly opening several Settings screens.

View original on GitHub ↗

1 Comment

github-actions[bot] contributor · 4 days ago

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

  • #39729
  • #40104

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