YOLO suppresses trust prompt but still blocks .codex/skills (empty $ menu without explanation)
Resolved 💬 1 comment Opened Jan 22, 2026 by yiwenlu66 Closed Jan 22, 2026
Summary
In YOLO mode ("--dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox" / "--yolo"), Codex suppresses the trust onboarding prompt, but repo-scoped .codex/skills are still gated on per-project trust. This can produce an empty $ skills mention menu with no explanation.
This is a UX papercut: YOLO already implies the user is taking responsibility for safety, but the UI gives no signal that repo-local skills are intentionally not loaded because the project is untrusted.
Repro
- In a git repo (so project root detection finds
.git), create a skill under<repo>/.codex/skills/<name>/SKILL.mdwith valid frontmatter. - Ensure the repo has no trust decision (no
trust_levelentry for the repo/cwd in~/.codex/config.toml). - Run Codex TUI in YOLO mode:
codex --yolo. - In the composer, type
$.
Actual
- No trust prompt shown.
- Repo-scoped skills under
.codex/skillsdo not appear in the$menu (likely because the project is untrusted and project layers are not loaded). - No UI message explains why skills are missing.
Expected
One of:
- (A) The UI should surface an explicit message/banner in YOLO mode (or generally) when repo-local
.codex/skillsare skipped due to untrusted project. - (B) Provide an explicit UX affordance to trust the current project (even if YOLO suppresses onboarding) so repo-local skills can be loaded.
- (C) If YOLO is intended to imply trust for config/skills loading, document that and/or automatically treat the current project as trusted for the purpose of loading
.codex/layers (security implications should be considered).
Implementation notes
- YOLO sets
sandbox_mode = DangerFullAccessandapproval_policy = Never:codex-rs/tui/src/lib.rs. - Trust onboarding is suppressed when
config.did_user_set_custom_approval_policy_or_sandbox_modeis true:codex-rs/tui/src/lib.rs:should_show_trust_screen. - Project layers (and thus
.codex/skills) are only loaded whenprojects.<path>.trust_level == trusted:codex-rs/core/src/config_loader/mod.rs:trusted_project_root. - Skills roots come from config layer folders +
/skills:codex-rs/core/src/skills/loader.rs:skill_roots_from_layer_stack_inner.
Version
- git HEAD: a4cb97ba5a6d02cb066dfda73e7ea83823a55fea
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