Always have to approve file edits

Resolved 💬 6 comments Opened Oct 12, 2025 by nick-youngblut Closed Jan 10, 2026

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex is running?

0.46.0

Which model were you using?

gpt-5-codex

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Install the codex cli extension for Cursor. See the codex settings file (~/.codex/config.toml) to:

model = "gpt-5-codex"
model_reasoning_effort = "medium"

[tools]
web_search = true

[projects."/Users/MY_USER_NAME"]
trust_level = "trusted"

[optional] see trust_level = "trusted" for specific cursor projects.

Running codex in the extension. All file edits require the user to press the Allow this session button, which gets very annoying.

What is the expected behavior?

codex should edit files without baby siting.

What do you see instead?

Approval is always required

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

6 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 10 months ago

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

#3325
#5038
#4937
#3085
#4940

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nick-youngblut · 10 months ago

Even when I include:

approval_policy = "never"
sandbox_mode = "workspace-write"

in the config.toml, I'm still asked for approval for every file edit.

gpeal contributor · 10 months ago

What mode do you have set below your Composer? Agent should only rarely request for your approval for commands.

There is not currently a way to use a custom agent mode from your config.toml but a custom option which will respect that is launching very soon.

etraut-openai contributor · 7 months ago

Closing old bugs.

gunnartorfis · 6 months ago

@etraut-openai this is still the case in the latest Codex desktop app on macOS.

It asks for approval to do anything, any terminal command, any edit. There's only the "Default permission" and then the "Full access". Is there nothing in-between? I'd want the option to allow all edits during a session, without giving a permission to modify my entire filesystem.

etraut-openai contributor · 6 months ago

@gunnartorfis, the "Default permission" gives the agent write access to your project directory and /tmp directory but not other parts of your file system. Full access removes that limitation. If you're seeing behavior other than that, please find an active bug report or create a new one with details and repro steps.