A developer says Codex relaunched their real browser with test flags and 31 saved passwords were deleted

This is one person's account on GitHub, not independently confirmed. It was filed as a bug report against the Codex CLI on 25 October 2026 and was still open when we read it.

What happened

The developer had given Codex a browser-control task on a Mac, using GPT-5.6-Sol. To get control of the browser, the agent quit the user's running Brave browser and reopened it with a set of flags: a remote debugging port, muted audio, and two flags that switch Chromium-based browsers to a dummy keychain and a basic password store. Those last two are meant for throwaway automation profiles.

The catch: the command didn't point Brave at a separate profile. So Brave opened the developer's real, everyday profile, full of saved passwords and extensions, with a different way of storing credentials.

How it went wrong

About a minute later the agent restarted Brave again, this time without those flags. By then, according to the report, Brave had decided the existing saved passwords couldn't be decrypted and deleted them. The developer says Brave's own settings recorded the reason as deleting undecryptable passwords.

The damage they list: 31 saved passwords permanently deleted, with the deleted database pages zeroed so they couldn't be recovered. A crypto wallet extension also disappeared from the profile. Its data folder was still there, but the extension files and its registration were gone. The developer says Codex didn't warn them, ask for confirmation, make a backup, or notice it was changing a real browser profile.

What they asked for

The report says Codex should never relaunch a user's own browser profile with flags that change how it stores credentials. If automation needs those flags, it should use a dedicated temporary profile. If the task needs the user's real session, it should attach through the supported browser extension instead. Quitting and relaunching someone's personal browser with credential flags should be treated as destructive and need explicit approval. The developer also points to an earlier report in another browser automation project about why these flags must never touch real profiles, and suggests testing only on a disposable profile.

Lesson for builders

This is our opinion. A browser profile is a password vault with a window attached. Give agents their own throwaway profile for automation, never your daily one. Keep passwords in a separate password manager, back up anything you can't afford to lose, and treat 'restart my browser with these flags' as a risky command that deserves a human yes.