Bug Report: Codex Chronicle triggers high coreaudiod CPU with Rogue Amoeba ARK / SoundSource

Summary

When Codex Chronicle is enabled on macOS with Rogue Amoeba SoundSource installed, the codex_chronicle screen recorder appears to trigger repeated Rogue Amoeba ARK audio meta-device register/unregister churn inside coreaudiod. This drove coreaudiod to roughly 100-130% CPU and made system audio controls laggy.

Disabling Chronicle and stopping codex_chronicle immediately reduced coreaudiod to roughly 11-30% CPU.

Environment

• macOS: 26.5, build 25F5042g
• Codex desktop: 26.417.41555
• SoundSource: 6.0.6
• Rogue Amoeba ARK driver installed
• Krisp and Parrot virtual audio drivers also installed

Actual Behavior

While Chronicle is active:

• coreaudiod sustains roughly 100-130% CPU
• WindowServer sustains roughly 40-50% CPU
• system volume/audio controls become laggy
• coreaudiod logs show repeated ARK meta-device work tied to codex_chronicle

Representative log pattern:

HALS_MultiTap.cpp:222 register_meta_device
HALS_Client.cpp:1573 AddMuter: Process codex_chronicle (...) muted by com.rogueamoeba.ARK...
HALS_MultiTap.cpp:231 unregister_meta_device

Expected Behavior

Chronicle screen recording should not cause sustained high coreaudiod CPU or repeated ARK audio meta-device creation/destruction. If Chronicle is not intentionally recording audio, it should avoid triggering audio capture/muting paths entirely.

Reproduction Steps

1. Use macOS with SoundSource / Rogue Amoeba ARK installed.

2. Enable Codex Chronicle:

   [features]
   chronicle = true

3. Launch Codex desktop.

4. Confirm Chronicle is running:

   pgrep -alf 'codex_chronicle|capture-screenshot-child'

5. Observe process CPU:

   ps -A -o pid=,%cpu=,%mem=,time=,command= | egrep 'coreaudiod|WindowServer|codex_chronicle|SoundSource|ARK' | sort -k2 -nr

6. Observe coreaudiod logs:

   log show --last 2m --style compact --predicate 'process == "coreaudiod"' \
     | rg 'codex_chronicle|register_meta_device|unregister_meta_device|AddMuter'

7. Stop codex_chronicle:

   pkill -f '/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/codex_chronicle'

8. Re-measure. In my repro, coreaudiod dropped from triple-digit CPU to roughly 11-30%, and the repeated ARK log entries stopped.

Workaround

Set:

chronicle = false

in ~/.codex/config.toml, stop the running codex_chronicle helper, and restart Codex.

Suggested Fix Direction

• Ensure Chronicle does not trigger audio capture or audio muting paths when only screen capture is needed.
• Keep Chronicle's capture client stable instead of causing repeated ARK meta-device creation/destruction.
• Consider excluding codex_chronicle from audio capture/muting.
• Add telemetry/guardrails for sustained coreaudiod load caused by Chronicle.