Code formatting in "ask for approval" mode is completely broken.

[rishsriv]

What version of Codex is running?

0.20.0

Which model were you using?

gpt-5

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Run Codex in No, ask me to approve edits and commands mode in any folder, using iTerm2 or the terminal app on a Mac
2. Ask it to implement a change to the current codebase
3. The code generated is improperly formatted and impossible to read (see image). No accept/reject prompt is visible

What is the expected behavior?

No response

What do you see instead?

No response

Additional information

No response

[nestedlogicsol]

This makes read-only mode unusable in its current state.

We need a "propose patch" command that shows a diff and asks for approval.

Related:

• Proposed changes not showing as expected, diff is missing #2092
• apply_patch command generates requests with illegible diff #2005

[rahulrajaram]

Yup, I don't like this. This should be easy to fix, you've just got to respect newlines and common chaining operators. This could be done deterministically.

[nestedlogicsol]

One would think @rahulrajaram, but I think we're missing a tool/command entirely. If you look at the screenshots, GPT-5 is trying to execute codex outside of the sandbox with args --codex-run-as-apply-patch. This doesn't even feel like a valid use case for sandbox patches. There should be a propose patch tool/command that we can give permission too, or apply patch should ask for permission in read-only sandbox (thought apply patch is missing diffs entirely).

[vmotta8]

I’ve opened a PR to address this #2185

[nestedlogicsol]

Awesome! Thanks @vmotta8 - I hope someone gets to it soon.

[rishsriv]

Thank you @vmotta8!