codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix Browser Use disappeared from Codex App despite enabled feature flags [1 comments, 2 participants]

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

26.429.8261.0

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.22621.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Browser Use / in-app browser is no longer available in Codex App. I was using it successfully a few days ago for ad-hoc UI testing. I restarted the app and confirmed I am on the latest version, but new sessions no longer expose Browser Use.

Environment:

• Codex App: 26.429.8261.0
• Codex CLI: codex-cli 0.128.0-alpha.1
• Platform: Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.22621.0 x64
• Running Codex with WSL

Current behavior:

• Browser Use is missing from the session tool/plugin surface.
• codex debug prompt-input 'test browser use' contains no Browser Use plugin/skill and no browser-use:browser skill.
• The current model prompt exposes the GitHub plugin only.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open Codex App on Windows.
2. Start a new Codex session.
3. Ask Codex to use Browser Use / the in-app browser for an ad-hoc UI check.
4. Observe that Browser Use is not available.

Diagnostic commands I ran:

• codex features list
• codex debug prompt-input 'test browser use'

codex features list shows the relevant feature flags enabled:

• browser_use stable true
• in_app_browser stable true
• computer_use stable true
• plugins stable true
• tool_search stable true

But Browser Use is still absent from the actual session/tool surface.

What is the expected behavior?

Browser Use should be available as a built-in/openai-bundled plugin, skill, or tool when browser_use and in_app_browser feature flags are enabled.

I expect to be able to use it for quick one-off exploratory UI checks while building features, without having to create formal Playwright tests.

Additional information

Current local state:

• ~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled exists but is empty.
• Current bundled marketplace at ~/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled only contains latex-tectonic.
• Searches found no browser-client.mjs, no browser-use, and no *browser*.mjs under current ~/.codex cache or app install paths.
• Old Browser Use state still exists under ~/.codex/browser/sessions/, which suggests Browser Use previously ran on this machine.

Older sessions from Apr 28 / May 1 exposed Browser Use as:

openai-bundled/browser-use/0.1.0-alpha1

with skill:

~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/browser-use/0.1.0-alpha1/skills/browser/SKILL.md

and script:

~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/browser-use/0.1.0-alpha1/scripts/browser-client.mjs

A previous Browser Use call successfully used the in-app browser backend:

await setupAtlasRuntime({ globals: globalThis, backend: 'iab' })

and returned metadata containing:

"codex/browserUse": true

Hypothesis: this looks like a bundled marketplace/plugin packaging regression or removal. The feature flags are still enabled, but the actual openai-bundled/browser-use/0.1.0-alpha1 plugin bundle is absent from disk and not advertised to the agent session.