codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix /goal slash command shows "Not sent" and does not create a goal

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

Codex Desktop 26.519.31651 (build 3017). Local thread metadata also showed 0.133.0-alpha.1 during investigation.

What subscription do you have?

PRO 200

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.4.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

The /goal slash command appears to fail in Codex Desktop while the same text sends normally when /goal is removed.

User-visible behaviour:

• A message that begins with /goal stays in an orange "Not sent" state.
• Removing only /goal from the same prompt body lets the prompt send normally as a regular message.
• The failing prompt was not close to a large prompt limit: about 1,411 characters after /goal, or 1,418 characters including the command.
• Local configuration has goals enabled: [features] goals = true.

The issue looks command-specific rather than a general send outage, because normal prompts continued to send in the same thread.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: 019e512c-b714-7f80-bb53-f8a9aa7c281c

Steps seen locally:

1. In Codex Desktop, open an existing thread where a previous goal had already completed.
2. Paste a multi-line prompt beginning with /goal. Example shape, with private project details redacted:

/goal
Use the operating contract.
Run a truth refresh.
Start a clean lane if the current checkout is dirty or not the assigned worktree.

You are the worker agent responsible for addressing current-head review feedback on this Pull Request.
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Final report must include repository, worktree, branch, Pull Request URL, latest head checked, fixes, comments answered, checks run, and next orchestration action.

1. Submit the message.
2. Observe that the message card shows orange "Not sent".
3. Remove only /goal from the same prompt body and submit again.
4. Observe that the normal prompt sends successfully.

Evidence from local inspection:

• The local goal database did not receive a new goal row after the failed /goal attempts.
• Earlier in the same thread, goal mode had worked and emitted thread_goal_updated events.
• A later goal completed at 2026-05-22T20:53:04Z.
• After a normal follow-up prompt at 2026-05-22T21:05:16Z, later /goal attempts around 2026-05-22T21:13Z failed with "Not sent" and no new goal record.
• Local app logs around the failure window showed repeated WebSocket reset warnings, for example: "websocket receive error: Connection reset without closing handshake" at 2026-05-22 21:13:35, 21:14:35, and 21:15:35.

What is the expected behavior?

Submitting a valid /goal message should create or update the persistent thread goal, emit the expected goal update state, and not leave the message in "Not sent" when the same prompt body is otherwise accepted as a normal message.

Additional information

OpenAI status had a Codex rate-limit/degraded-performance incident around the same time, but the observed behaviour was specific to the /goal command path: regular prompts in the same thread sent successfully while /goal did not create a goal.

This does not appear to be caused by goals being disabled locally, because [features] goals = true was already present in the Codex configuration.