Change the hardcoded $HOME/.codex path
Resolved 💬 6 comments Opened Sep 28, 2025 by qodeninja Closed Dec 31, 2025
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What version of Codex is running?
codex-cli 0.41.0
Which model were you using?
latet 5
What platform is your computer?
linux
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Install codex. Use it.
Home directory is polluted with codex garbage.
What is the expected behavior?
Codex should respect XDG directories and be a good visitor on a host system and not pollute the $HOME directory with clutter.
What do you see instead?
Codex creating noise in my $HOME directory. Codex is not a first-class guest on my system and is not allowed to write where it wants to. It should respect User system and preferences and not be a bull in a china shop. Default paths should be user configurable, or use standard XDG/Linux directories like ~/.config ~/.local/ or */etc
Additional information
_No response_
6 Comments
You can set CODEX_HOME to whatever you want.
If we can set the default value of CODEX_HOME=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/codex, I don't have to setup a home directory for every tool I have in the tool chain.
https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/44ceaf085b0ffafe127a050fd5d35797b8ab1fc9/codex-rs/core/src/config.rs#L1445
Will something like this work? https://github.com/kulesh/codex/commit/d1fb6e2f5d6663ee4836fd7f805840e9137d6139
(When CODEX_HOME is present just use that; otherwise follow XDG spec when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set before falling back to default?)
As noted above, codex supports the
CODEX_HOMEenv var.Please consider reopening this issue.
Why have us manually set
CODEX_HOMEwhen you can just follow existing established conventions like the XDG base dir spec?If every CLI tool had this approach, our bashrc/zshrc files would be full of
X_HOME=...,Y_HOME=.... etc.be nice
@bartekpacia, see feature request https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/1980. Feel free to upvote that.