/review command ignores language settings in Japanese environment and AGENTS.md

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Oct 12, 2025 by kinopeee Closed Jan 7, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex CLI is running?

codex-cli 0.46.0

Which model were you using?

gpt-5-codex(medium)

What platform is your computer?

macOS 15.6.1

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Set system locale to Japanese (ja_JP.UTF-8 or equivalent)
  2. Create .codex/AGENTS.md with Japanese language instruction:

```markdown
# Instructions for Codex

常に日本語で回答してください。
(Always respond in Japanese)
```

  1. Run /review command on any file or pull request
  2. Observe the response

What is the expected behavior?

The /review command should respect:

  • System language settings (Japanese locale)
  • Language instructions specified in AGENTS.md
  • User's language preference indicated in the environment

Expected: Review output in Japanese

What do you see instead?

The /review command always responds in English, regardless of:

  • Japanese system locale
  • Japanese language instruction in AGENTS.md
  • User's clear preference for Japanese output

Additional information

Impact:

  • Affects users in Japanese-speaking environments
  • Contradicts the documented behavior of AGENTS.md respecting custom instructions
  • Inconsistent with other Codex commands that may respect language settings

Workaround attempts:
None effective. Even explicit Japanese instructions in AGENTS.md are ignored by /review.

Related:

  • Other Codex commands (e.g., general queries) may respect AGENTS.md instructions
  • Only /review command seems to have this language override issue

Environment details:

  • Reproducible across different operating systems
  • Occurs with Japanese locale settings
  • AGENTS.md instructions work for other commands but not /review

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

kierr · 10 months ago

やあ!

/review uses a hardcoded prompt, and it would appear AGENTS.md isn't factored into context.

Try /review in japanese, I tested it and it works for me! You won't be shown the same convenient modal though - you'll have to manually specify the review context (a base branch, a specific commit, etc.)

Colin3191 · 10 months ago

Same problem here

etraut-openai contributor · 7 months ago

As mentioned above, AGENTS.md is not used for the /review command. The AGENTS.md file is used for normal code generation mode, and it is assumed that its instructions will likely not be appropriate for code review mode.