rdmbair13m5-changelog-20260904-0718-codex-load-normalization

Normalized Codex loading without deleting capabilities, eliminating duplicate effective skill entries and proving a fresh load succeeds at the unchanged 256-descriptor limit.

Scope and reason

• Fleet scope: all six Macs; this record covers the configuration change executed on rdmbair13m5 and the session artifacts created from this host.
• Reason: Codex Desktop logged widespread skill/MCP/tool failures with Too many open files (os error 24) while its ChatGPT parent process was at 251 numeric descriptors out of 256.
• Ticket: ISSUE-20260904-03, child of INC-20260904-01.

Files changed

• /Users/richh/.codex/config.toml
• /Users/richh/dev/_handoff/codex-load-normalization-20260904/ (audit scripts, raw redacted-safe evidence, report, staged documentation, and changelog sources)
• /Users/richh/.agent-coordination/checkins/codex-rdmbair13m5-codex-load-normalization-20260904.json

Configuration result

• Plugin tables: 50 enabled before; 15 enabled and 35 disabled after. Broad imported packs remain installed but are opt-in; OpenAI plugins, connected apps, Hookify, Frontend Design, Mem0, Firecrawl, and explicit MCP definitions remain.
• Exact byte-identical skill copies suppressed: 9 under ~/.codex/skills, with identical retained copies under ~/.agents/skills.
• Explicit skill-catalog budget: 10,000 tokens.
• Final config SHA-256: acecb4db064b64bf7adcacfe64304e8d5a1ade64d9908c1ddbb7df848427cce2.

Commands and verification

• Ran the read-only audit_codex_loading_v1.0.zsh inventory and exact-duplicate audit.
• Ran staged dry-run and hash-guarded apply passes for normalize_codex_loading_v1.0.zsh, dedupe_codex_skills_v1.0.zsh, and inert-override cleanup.
• codex --strict-config doctor --json: live config loads and parses successfully.
• codex debug prompt-input: affected duplicate names fell from two catalog entries to one; prompt-input artifact fell from 85,013 to 81,346 bytes.
• Fresh codex exec: exit 0, exact response CODEX_LOAD_OK, 35,203 input tokens, no skill-budget warning, no EMFILE, with launchctl limit maxfiles still 256.
• All five delivered zsh scripts pass zsh -n.

Backups and undo

• Primary pre-change backup: /Users/richh/.agent-coordination/backups/codex-load-normalization-20260904T0615/rdmbair13m5/config.toml.before.
• Phase backups: codex-load-normalization-20260904T0630-budget, codex-skill-dedupe-20260904T0650-filepaths, and codex-inert-skill-override-cleanup-20260904T0700 under /Users/richh/.agent-coordination/backups/.
• Undo: first compare the live config hash, make a fresh copy, atomically restore the desired config.toml.before, and re-run strict doctor. The full report contains the phase-specific rollback map.

Outstanding actions

• Quit and reopen ChatGPT/Codex Desktop only after live sessions finish; the existing PID still holds 251/256 descriptors and does not retroactively reload the new plugin surface.
• Apple Notes publication is pending because this session is Background, not Aqua; the file record was still written as required.
• The configured Codex-state-backup wrapper is absent on both this host and canonical rdmsm4x; exact independent backups above are the verified rollback state.