Agent chaosAs reported·29 Oct 2026
A developer says Codex Cloud deleted the build behind two tasks, locking away about 341 files of uncommitted work
As reported One person’s public account. We couldn’t independently confirm it, and we’ll update this if the facts change.
A developer says two Codex Cloud tasks that worked one day wouldn't resume the next, one saying its cloud build had been deleted, with a nearly finished app of about 341 uncommitted source files inside.
This is one person's account on GitHub, not independently confirmed. It was filed against OpenAI's Codex on 28 October 2026 and was still open, with no reply, when we read it.
What happened
The developer had two Codex Cloud conversations, where Codex works on code inside a cloud workspace instead of on your own machine. Both were working on 27 October. On 28 October neither would resume, in Codex on the web or in the Windows desktop app.
One stopped with an error saying the cloud build for the thread had been deleted and could not be resumed. The other just said something went wrong. Their steps to reproduce are simple: open a Codex Cloud conversation that worked on 27 October, try to resume it on 28 October, and get the deleted-build error.
What's at stake
The developer says one of those workspaces holds an almost finished new version of their software, about 341 source files. None of those changes had been committed or pushed to GitHub, so as far as they know the cloud workspace is the only copy. They say losing it would mean losing substantial development work.
They also report a GitHub repository loading failure on the same day. Repository access came back, but the two original tasks stayed locked.
What they're asking for
They want OpenAI to keep any VM snapshot of the workspace and look into it before the recovery window runs out, and they say recovering the uncommitted files is the top priority. They say the case has already been escalated to OpenAI support and that they can share conversation links, request IDs and session IDs privately.
They also want a fix for the future: Codex Cloud should keep a task's workspace and its uncommitted files for the whole supported retention period, and if a task can't be resumed, there should still be a way to recover or export the files. They link an older report of a similar workspace persistence problem with different symptoms.
Our take
This is our opinion. A cloud agent's workspace feels like your laptop, but it's somebody else's temporary machine with its own clean-up rules. Treat uncommitted work in a cloud agent the way you'd treat an unsaved document: have the agent commit to a work-in-progress branch and push it often, so a deleted VM costs you minutes, not a release.
Have cloud coding agents commit and push to a work-in-progress branch often, so a deleted workspace never holds the only copy.
