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Codex App briefly shows 'New Plugin' then falls back to 'Skills' after startup #16006

Description

@kilwizac

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

OpenAI.Codex 26.325.2171.0

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Summary

After the March 26, 2026 plugin rollout, the Codex App never consistently exposes the Plugins surface for me.

At startup I sometimes briefly see a New Plugin button, but it quickly switches back to Skills and the plugin flow never becomes available.

This appears distinct from plugin-screen load failures like CXA-2577. In my case, the app seems to settle back into the legacy Skills path instead of actually entering a usable Plugins path.

I also see the same symptom on a MacBook, but the concrete evidence below is from Windows.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Install/update the Codex App from the Microsoft Store.
  2. Open Codex App on Windows.
  3. Watch the left/sidebar/home capability area during startup.
  4. Sometimes a New Plugin button appears briefly.
  5. After startup settles, the UI reverts to Skills and there is no stable Plugins surface.

What is the expected behavior?

If plugins are enabled for this build/account, the Plugins surface should remain available consistently after startup and should not fall back to Skills.

Additional information

What I already eliminated locally

I reset and normalized the local setup before filing this:

  • Reset persisted Electron app UI state (~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json)
  • Simplified ~/.codex/config.toml back to a clean baseline
  • Disabled old custom subagent overrides so Codex falls back to built-in agents
  • Confirmed feature flags report:
apps                             stable             true
plugins                          stable             true
multi_agent                      stable             true
shell_snapshot                   stable             true

Local evidence

The app-server traces repeatedly show app/list and skills/list requests, but I have not observed a plugin/list request from this installation while reproducing the problem.

Recent local log excerpts:

app-server request: app/list
app-server request: skills/list

Versions

  • Codex App: OpenAI.Codex 26.325.2171.0
  • Bundled CLI / local CLI observed: codex-cli 0.117.0

Why I think this is a distinct bug from CXA-2577

  • CXA-2577 appears to be about the Plugins/App screen failing when opened.
  • This issue is that the app never stably surfaces the Plugins experience after startup, even after a full local config cleanup.
  • The UI briefly hints that Plugins are available (New Plugin) and then reverts to Skills, which feels more like startup gating/state reconciliation than a single broken plugin view.

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    appIssues related to the Codex desktop appbugSomething isn't workingskillsIssues related to skills

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