fix: report an appropriate error in the TUI for malformed rules by bolinfest · Pull Request #9011 · openai/codex

bolinfest · 2026-01-10T00:39:40Z

The underlying issue is that when we encountered an error starting a conversation (any sort of error, though making $CODEX_HOME/rules a file rather than folder was the example in #8803), then we were writing the message to stderr, but this could be printed over by our UI framework so the user would not see it. In general, we disallow the use of eprintln!() in this part of the code for exactly this reason, though this was suppressed by an #[allow(clippy::print_stderr)].

This attempts to clean things up by changing handle_event() and handle_tui_event() to return a Result<AppRunControl> instead of a Result<bool>, which is a new type introduced in this PR (and depends on ExitReason, also a new type):

#[derive(Debug)]
pub(crate) enum AppRunControl {
    Continue,
    Exit(ExitReason),
}

#[derive(Debug, Clone)]
pub enum ExitReason {
    UserRequested,
    Fatal(String),
}

This makes it possible to exit the primary control flow of the TUI with richer information. This PR adds ExitReason to the existing AppExitInfo struct and updates handle_app_exit() to print the error and exit code 1 in the event of ExitReason::Fatal.

I tried to create an integration test for this, but it was a bit involved, so I published it as a separate PR: #9166. For this PR, please have faith in my manual testing!

Fixes #8803.

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etraut-openai · 2026-01-13T17:36:12Z

Will this also work for api service clients like the IDE extension? Looks like it's TUI-only?

bolinfest · 2026-01-13T22:04:19Z

codex-rs/tui/src/chatwidget/agent.rs

@@ -30,16 +30,14 @@ pub(crate) fn spawn_agent(
            ..
        } = match server.start_thread(config).await {


@etraut-openai to answer your question about "Will this also work for api service clients like the IDE extension?" I believe the crux of the issue is how the UI deals with an Err from start_thread().

I believe it is already doing the right thing here:

codex/codex-rs/app-server/src/codex_message_processor.rs

Lines 1333 to 1356 in 3c711f3

match self.thread_manager.start_thread(config).await {

Ok(new_thread) => {

let NewThread {

thread_id,

session_configured,

..

} = new_thread;

let response = NewConversationResponse {

conversation_id: thread_id,

model: session_configured.model,

reasoning_effort: session_configured.reasoning_effort,

rollout_path: session_configured.rollout_path,

};

self.outgoing.send_response(request_id, response).await;

}

Err(err) => {

let error = JSONRPCErrorError {

code: INTERNAL_ERROR_CODE,

message: format!("error creating conversation: {err}"),

data: None,

};

self.outgoing.send_error(request_id, error).await;

}

}

I'm working on a new PR that surfaces config parsing errors correctly to app server clients. I'll extend it to handle malformed rules errors as well.

etraut-openai · 2026-01-13T22:24:16Z

codex-rs/cli/src/main.rs


 /// Handle the app exit and print the results. Optionally run the update action.
 fn handle_app_exit(exit_info: AppExitInfo) -> anyhow::Result<()> {
+    match exit_info.exit_reason {


It looks like this runs only in interactive mode. What about non-interactive mode (codex exec)? I think we'd want this same error printed in that case.

This already appears to work as intended for codex exec:

$ ./codex-rs/target/debug/codex exec hi Error: Fatal error: failed to load execpolicy: failed to read execpolicy files from /Users/mbolin/.codex/rules: Not a directory (os error 20)

etraut-openai · 2026-01-13T22:25:20Z

codex-rs/tui/src/chatwidget/agent.rs

@@ -30,16 +30,14 @@ pub(crate) fn spawn_agent(
            ..
        } = match server.start_thread(config).await {


I'm working on a new PR that surfaces config parsing errors correctly to app server clients. I'll extend it to handle malformed rules errors as well.

joshka-oai · 2026-01-13T22:29:47Z

codex-rs/tui/src/lib.rs

                        token_usage: codex_core::protocol::TokenUsage::default(),
                        thread_id: None,
                        update_action: Some(action),
+                        fatal_error_message: ExitReason::UserRequested,


Suggested change

fatal_error_message: ExitReason::UserRequested,

exit_reason: ExitReason::UserRequested,

Good catch! Fixed and ran cargo build --bin codex --release locally to verify the fix.

joshka-oai

Approved - but make sure to fix #9011 (comment)

bolinfest force-pushed the pr9011 branch from 6fbc466 to e2d6ed6 Compare January 13, 2026 16:50

bolinfest mentioned this pull request Jan 13, 2026

v0.78.0 panics instead of graceful error when .codex/rules contains invalid Starlark #8803

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bolinfest force-pushed the pr9011 branch from e2d6ed6 to 0a8a52e Compare January 13, 2026 17:08

bolinfest force-pushed the pr9011 branch from 0a8a52e to b21b756 Compare January 13, 2026 21:29

bolinfest added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 13, 2026

fix: integration test for #9011

dd01533

bolinfest mentioned this pull request Jan 13, 2026

fix: integration test for #9011 #9166

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bolinfest commented Jan 13, 2026

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bolinfest requested review from etraut-openai and joshka-oai January 13, 2026 22:04

bolinfest added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 13, 2026

fix: integration test for #9011

e6d8dff

bolinfest added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 13, 2026

fix: integration test for #9011

67ca792

etraut-openai reviewed Jan 13, 2026

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joshka-oai approved these changes Jan 13, 2026

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fix: report an appropriate error in the TUI for malformed rules

de88da3

bolinfest added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 13, 2026

fix: integration test for #9011

b95623e

bolinfest force-pushed the pr9011 branch from b21b756 to de88da3 Compare January 13, 2026 22:41

bolinfest enabled auto-merge (squash) January 13, 2026 22:58

bolinfest merged commit 2cd1a0a into main Jan 13, 2026
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bolinfest deleted the pr9011 branch January 13, 2026 23:21

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fix: report an appropriate error in the TUI for malformed rules#9011

fix: report an appropriate error in the TUI for malformed rules#9011
bolinfest merged 1 commit intomainfrom
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bolinfest commented Jan 10, 2026 •

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		@@ -30,16 +30,14 @@ pub(crate) fn spawn_agent(
		..
		} = match server.start_thread(config).await {

	match self.thread_manager.start_thread(config).await {
	Ok(new_thread) => {
	let NewThread {
	thread_id,
	session_configured,
	..
	} = new_thread;
	let response = NewConversationResponse {
	conversation_id: thread_id,
	model: session_configured.model,
	reasoning_effort: session_configured.reasoning_effort,
	rollout_path: session_configured.rollout_path,
	};
	self.outgoing.send_response(request_id, response).await;
	}
	Err(err) => {
	let error = JSONRPCErrorError {
	code: INTERNAL_ERROR_CODE,
	message: format!("error creating conversation: {err}"),
	data: None,
	};
	self.outgoing.send_error(request_id, error).await;
	}
	}

	fatal_error_message: ExitReason::UserRequested,
	exit_reason: ExitReason::UserRequested,

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bolinfest commented Jan 10, 2026 •

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