Extension's return key behavior is non-standard and frustrating
Resolved 💬 9 comments Opened Oct 25, 2025 by btraut Closed Jan 27, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What version of Codex is running?
0.4.26
What subscription do you have?
Personal
Which model were you using?
_No response_
What platform is your computer?
Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm
What issue are you seeing?
I'm really struggling with the behavior of the Return key in the Codex extension on VS Code and Codex. Pressing return submits the prompt if it's a single line, or else it creates a newline if it's a multi-line prompt. While I understand what you folks were going for, this is entirely unlike any behavior I've ever seen and it almost always results in mistakes.
Thanks!
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Type or paste multi-line text.
- Press return to submit, but get a newline instead.
- Curse at the extension.
- Cmd-return to submit.
What is the expected behavior?
Pressing return should always submit, regardless of presence of a newline.
Additional information
_No response_
9 Comments
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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I've described the problem here. #5683
Maybe requery_default_colors() will solve the problem.
Please fix this. I don't know of any other IDE or even chat app that works this way, and I regularly switch through Cursor, Claude, and now Antigravity, and having to remember that I'm in upside down land whenever I use Codex is very off-putting.
Cohesive UX is important.
Why is this still an issue? why can't this be fixed by a keybinding if you guys insist in your inconsistent UX preferences?
@martinezhermes I'm not sure how I'd do that. The non-standard (and frustrating) behavior of the Codex extension isn't something exposed as a keybiding that I can re-bind as far as I'm aware.
The inability to change the default behavior of the Enter key is why I dropped Kiro and switched to Codex. Kiro devs were simply disinterested in creating a simple configuration line that says "Send on {Enter | Ctrl + Enter}". After so many misfired messages to Kiro, when all I wanted was a new line, I finally had enough and said goodbye to it.
With Codex, I very much like how I can actually use the multi-line editor by default - although I have been caught off-guard occasionally when messages were sent just by pressing Enter, if they were a single line.
I don't speak for everyone, of course, but all of our lives would be made much easier with a bit of predictability and consistency here.
If users could have a choice between sending messages with either Enter or Ctrl+Enter, everyone could set up whatever choice they want and we'd all be happy little pandas.
That said, please, for the love of everything - do not take away the Ctrl+Enter functionality! I will make Enter on single-line work somehow and will never complain. Ever!
Good new! The next prerelease version of the Codex IDE Extension changes this behavior, aligning it with the more standard behavior seen in other chat interfaces like ChatGPT. The old behavior will still be available via a setting for users who preferred it.
Woohoo! Thanks @etraut-openai and team!
I cannot enable the option "^ + enter to send long prompts"
When I click "Open settings" under "IDE settings", this option doesn't show up in either 0.4.68 or 0.4.67.
I rolled back to 0.4.66 and am happy to stay there until we find a way to not force "Enter to send" on everyone.