VS Code extension does not load custom prompts from symlinks in ~/.codex/prompts

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Jan 2, 2026 by 0xYiliu Closed Jan 22, 2026

Hi Codex team — I found a behavior mismatch between the Codex CLI and the VS Code extension.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Create a custom prompt file in a repo, e.g. <repo>/.codex/prompts/biz.md
2) Symlink it into ~/.codex/prompts/biz.md
3) Restart VS Code and open Codex
4) Try to use /prompts:biz

Observed:

  • Codex CLI shows the prompt and works with the symlink.
  • VS Code extension does NOT show or load the prompt when it is a symlink.
  • If I replace the symlink with a real file (copy the file contents into ~/.codex/prompts/biz.md), the prompt appears and works immediately.

Expected:

  • The VS Code extension should read symlinked files in ~/.codex/prompts, same as the CLI.

Environment:

  • OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (WSL2, kernel 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2)
  • VS Code: 1.100.0
  • Extension: openai.chatgpt@0.5.56
  • Mode: /local

generated by GPT-5.2-Codex

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