Codex cannot access files in remote directory (connected use SSHFS) in VSCode
Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Nov 25, 2025 by JcaiJcai Closed Mar 29, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (lionel-oai, contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What version of the VS Code extension are you using?
1.106.2 (Universal)
What subscription do you have?
Plus
Which IDE are you using?
VS Code
What platform is your computer?
Darwin 21.6.0 arm64 arm
What issue are you seeing?
Hi team,
I encountered an issue where Codex in VSCode cannot access any files inside a folder that is mounted via SSHFS.
The issue seems specific to SSH FS.
- VSCode 1.106.2 (Universal)
- Codex extension (by OpenAI)
- SSHFS extension (by Kelvin Schoofs)
- Workspace opened from an SSHFS-connected remote directory
- “Work locally / sandbox mode”
- “Send to cloud” always disabled / greyed out
<img width="516" height="490" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bca031b8-059e-4b00-a9af-874058606009" />
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Connect a remote directory using SSHFS.
- Open the remote directory using SSHFS as a VSCode workspace. (As shown in the picture.)
<img width="491" height="704" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0a9fd77f-9b78-4a53-b108-a616cbad2009" />
- Open the Codex panel.
Try to: Access project files
Try to: Change "Work locally"
All of these fail.
What is the expected behavior?
- Add the current workspace (SSHFS folder) to the context
- Enable Codex to read and modify project files like a normal workspace
Additional information
_No response_
4 Comments
I can only access school's remote server using the SSH FS extension in VSCode and I cannot use Remote-SSH. Because of this restriction, it's very difficult for me to use AI coding tools like Codex effectively.
Have you tried forcing to ask for privilege escalation?
<img width="1166" height="586" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c3fd0591-6b37-4e5f-8a53-e8353ddbfc06" />
But like really forcing, as the model tries to deny any possibility of network-based ssh access in chat.
<img width="925" height="161" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/663314b4-3114-42d2-bb39-a9c4d47938ae" />
Hi @JcaiJcai thanks for filling this bug - can you try:
codex sandbox macos ls your-mounted-directorycodex sandbox macos --full-auto ls your-mounted-directorycodex sandbox macos --full-auto touch your-mounted-directory/hello.txtAnd let me know which one worked / did not work?
This bug report hasn't received any upvotes or additional posts in five months. Closing.