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Picture this.

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You've got a pile of log files in var log,
or a folder of CSVs that isn't a repo and

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never will be, and you want an agent to
help for ten minutes.

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Thanks to Jellypod for helping make this
daily show a reality.

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Today it's Codex CLI 0.160.0, released
October 1st,

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2026, and one change in it: pull request
49160, from

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etraut-openai.

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The release note reads: start sessions
outside a project with workspace defaults

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when policy permits, and restore saved
permissions when resuming.

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Let's unpack that, because it's two
changes in one sentence.

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The first is where you can launch.

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As this change is described, Codex CLI was
built around the idea of a project root.

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If you started it from your home
directory, or from tmp, it had trouble working out

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which workspace defaults applied.

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Those defaults are things like rules,
skills, and configuration layers.

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You could hit path errors, or you ended up
making a dummy Git repo just to give the

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tool somewhere to stand.

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And the second change is the one that
bites in practice.

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Say you were in one of those sessions, you
granted some permissions over several

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turns, and then your terminal closed or
your connection dropped.

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When you came back with codex resume,
those grants were gone,

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and you were clicking through the same
approvals again.

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In 0.160.0, the saved permissions are
restored when you resume.

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So here's how it looks at the keyboard.

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You make a scratch directory, say mkdir
slash tmp slash scratch,

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and cd into it.

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No git init.

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Then you just run codex.

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The TUI starts without a project.

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Per the description of this release, the
workspace defaults come from your global

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configuration, which is the config.toml
file inside your home directory's dot codex

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folder, or from system level configuration
under slash etc slash codex.

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That's the practical part.

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If you've set a default model, a reasoning
effort, or a set of allowed skills in

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your global config, a projectless session
picks them up.

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So the habit is to make sure your global
file is what you want,

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because it's now the only layer in play.

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There's no repo level config in a scratch
directory.

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Then resume.

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If the session gets interrupted, you run
codex resume, which picks up your recent

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session, or codex resume followed by the
session ID to target a specific one.

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The file and tool permissions you granted
earlier come back with it.

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Say you approved writes in that scratch
folder while parsing logs.

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After a restart you don't re-approve them.

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It makes a throwaway session behave like a
repo session did already.

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Now the caveats, and there are real ones.

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First, the phrase in the release note:
when policy permits.

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In managed environments, if administrators
enforce repository containment through

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requirements.toml, the expectation is that
a projectless launch fails closed.

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So if you're on a managed machine and
codex refuses to start outside a repo,

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that's probably policy working as
intended, not a bug.

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Talk to whoever owns the configuration.

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Second, and this is the one I'd underline:
blast radius.

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Inside a Git project, the agent is bounded
by the repository root.

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Launch from your home directory and grant
broad write access,

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and that grant now covers your documents,
your dotfiles, everything your user can

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touch.

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And since those grants persist across
resume, a broad approval you made on Monday is

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still alive when you resume on Wednesday.

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My advice is to launch from the narrowest
directory that works,

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like a dedicated scratch folder, and grant
the narrowest permissions you can.

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Third, the Git based features aren't
there.

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No automatic worktrees, no branch
switching, no commit diffing,

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unless you point the agent at a specific
nested repository.

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If your task is really code change
tracking, make it a repo.

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Projectless is for the jobs where a repo
would be overhead: diagnostics,

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log parsing, file shuffling, scratch
scripts.

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One more practical note.

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0.160.0 is marked latest on the releases
page.

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There are 0.162.0 alpha builds being cut
as we speak, with several published on

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October 2nd, but those are pre releases.

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If you want this behavior on a stable
channel, 0.160.0 is the one.

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A few smaller items from the same release.

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Pull request 49105: unsent queued messages
in the TUI now resume

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after a reconnection, once uncertain
submissions are resolved.

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The point is that you don't lose drafts
and you don't get duplicate sends after a

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network blip.

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Also opt in: Guardian reviews can now
retrieve earlier user instructions from the

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conversation history, and carry root
context across agent handoffs.

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That's from pull requests 49036 and 49057.

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Emphasis on opt in, so nothing changes
unless you turn it on.

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Linux users on X11 terminals get something
small but nice in fullscreen mode.

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You can select transcript text and paste
it with a middle click,

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using the primary selection.

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That applies to supported local X11
terminals.

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There's also a keyboard accessible Show
more action in the agent command center,

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so you can page back through older tasks.

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On Windows, the sandbox got several fixes.

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PowerShell fallbacks are repaired,
permission repairs on long runtime paths work,

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and background helpers no longer flash
console windows.

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Under the hood, unused space in the SQLite
log database is now reclaimed in the

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background, and the same release fixed
SQLite stalls during connection setup.

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And explicit provider model catalogs are
now treated as authoritative,

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so unsupported bundled models don't show
up in them, and stale entries aren't reused

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after a refresh failure.

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So the takeaway: update to 0.160.0, cd
into a scratch

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folder, run codex, and see that your
global config carries over.

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Then review what you approve, because it
now sticks around.

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That's the changelog for today.