## Summary
We have been returning `exit code 0` from the apply patch command when
writes fail, which causes our `exec` harness to pass back confusing
messages to the model. Instead, we should loudly fail so that the
harness and the model can handle these errors appropriately.
Also adds a test to confirm this behavior.
## Testing
- `cargo test -p codex-apply-patch`
Building on the work of https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/1702, this
changes how a shell call to `apply_patch` is handled.
Previously, a shell call to `apply_patch` was always handled in-process,
never leveraging a sandbox. To determine whether the `apply_patch`
operation could be auto-approved, the
`is_write_patch_constrained_to_writable_paths()` function would check if
all the paths listed in the paths were writable. If so, the agent would
apply the changes listed in the patch.
Unfortunately, this approach afforded a loophole: symlinks!
* For a soft link, we could fix this issue by tracing the link and
checking whether the target is in the set of writable paths, however...
* ...For a hard link, things are not as simple. We can run `stat FILE`
to see if the number of links is greater than 1, but then we would have
to do something potentially expensive like `find . -inum <inode_number>`
to find the other paths for `FILE`. Further, even if this worked, this
approach runs the risk of a
[TOCTOU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-check_to_time-of-use)
race condition, so it is not robust.
The solution, implemented in this PR, is to take the virtual execution
of the `apply_patch` CLI into an _actual_ execution using `codex
--codex-run-as-apply-patch PATCH`, which we can run under the sandbox
the user specified, just like any other `shell` call.
This, of course, assumes that the sandbox prevents writing through
symlinks as a mechanism to write to folders that are not in the writable
set configured by the sandbox. I verified this by testing the following
on both Mac and Linux:
```shell
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
# Can running a command in SANDBOX_DIR write a file in EXPLOIT_DIR?
# Codex is run in SANDBOX_DIR, so writes should be constrianed to this directory.
SANDBOX_DIR=$(mktemp -d -p "$HOME" sandboxtesttemp.XXXXXX)
# EXPLOIT_DIR is outside of SANDBOX_DIR, so let's see if we can write to it.
EXPLOIT_DIR=$(mktemp -d -p "$HOME" sandboxtesttemp.XXXXXX)
echo "SANDBOX_DIR: $SANDBOX_DIR"
echo "EXPLOIT_DIR: $EXPLOIT_DIR"
cleanup() {
# Only remove if it looks sane and still exists
[[ -n "${SANDBOX_DIR:-}" && -d "$SANDBOX_DIR" ]] && rm -rf -- "$SANDBOX_DIR"
[[ -n "${EXPLOIT_DIR:-}" && -d "$EXPLOIT_DIR" ]] && rm -rf -- "$EXPLOIT_DIR"
}
trap cleanup EXIT
echo "I am the original content" > "${EXPLOIT_DIR}/original.txt"
# Drop the -s to test hard links.
ln -s "${EXPLOIT_DIR}/original.txt" "${SANDBOX_DIR}/link-to-original.txt"
cat "${SANDBOX_DIR}/link-to-original.txt"
if [[ "$(uname)" == "Linux" ]]; then
SANDBOX_SUBCOMMAND=landlock
else
SANDBOX_SUBCOMMAND=seatbelt
fi
# Attempt the exploit
cd "${SANDBOX_DIR}"
codex debug "${SANDBOX_SUBCOMMAND}" bash -lc "echo pwned > ./link-to-original.txt" || true
cat "${EXPLOIT_DIR}/original.txt"
```
Admittedly, this change merits a proper integration test, but I think I
will have to do that in a follow-up PR.
As explained in detail in the doc comment for `ParseMode::Lenient`, we
have observed that GPT-4.1 does not always generate a valid invocation
of `apply_patch`. Fortunately, the error is predictable, so we introduce
some new logic to the `codex-apply-patch` crate to recover from this
error.
Because we would like to avoid this becoming a de facto standard (as it
would be incompatible if `apply_patch` were provided as an actual
executable, unless we also introduced the lenient behavior in the
executable, as well), we require passing `ParseMode::Lenient` to
`parse_patch_text()` to make it clear that the caller is opting into
supporting this special case.
Note the analogous change to the TypeScript CLI was
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/930. In addition to changing the
accepted input to `apply_patch`, it also introduced additional
instructions for the model, which we include in this PR.
Note that `apply-patch` does not depend on either `regex` or
`regex-lite`, so some of the checks are slightly more verbose to avoid
introducing this dependency.
That said, this PR does not leverage the existing
`extract_heredoc_body_from_apply_patch_command()`, which depends on
`tree-sitter` and `tree-sitter-bash`:
5a5aa89914/codex-rs/apply-patch/src/lib.rs (L191-L246)
though perhaps it should.
If you run a codex instance outside of the current working directory
from where you launched the codex binary it won't be able to apply
patches correctly, even if the sandbox policy allows it. This manifests
weird behaviours, such as
* Reading the same filename in the binary working directory, and
overwriting it in the session working directory. e.g. if you have a
`readme` in both folders it will overwrite the readme in the session
working directory with the readme in the binary working directory
*applied with the suggested patch*.
* The LLM ends up in weird loops trying to verify and debug why the
apply_patch won't work, and it can result in it applying patches by
manually writing python or javascript if it figures out that either is
supported by the system instead.
I added a test-case to ensure that the patch contents are based on the
cwd.
## Issue: mixing relative & absolute paths in apply_patch
1. The apply_patch tool use relative paths based on the session working
directory.
2. `unified_diff_from_chunks` eventually ends up [reading the source
file](https://github.com/reflectionai/codex/blob/main/codex-rs/apply-patch/src/lib.rs#L410)
to figure out what the diff is, by using the relative path.
3. The changes are targeted using an absolute path derived from the
current working directory.
The end-result in case session working directory differs from the binary
working directory: we get the diff for a file relative to the binary
working directory, and apply it on a file in the session working
directory.
Adds `expect()` as a denied lint. Same deal applies with `unwrap()`
where we now need to put `#[expect(...` on ones that we legit want. Took
care to enable `expect()` in test contexts.
# Tests
```
cargo fmt
cargo clippy --all-features --all-targets --no-deps -- -D warnings
cargo test
```
Sets submodules to use workspace lints. Added denying unwrap as a
workspace level lint, which found a couple of cases where we could have
propagated errors. Also manually labeled ones that were fine by my eye.
Some effects of this change:
- New formatting changes across many files. No functionality changes
should occur from that.
- Calls to `set_env` are considered unsafe, since this only happens in
tests we wrap them in `unsafe` blocks
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/800 kicked off some work to be more
disciplined about honoring the `cwd` param passed in rather than
assuming `std::env::current_dir()` as the `cwd`. As part of this, we
need to ensure `apply_patch` calls honor the appropriate `cwd` as well,
which is significant if the paths in the `apply_patch` arg are not
absolute paths themselves. Failing that:
- The `apply_patch` function call can contain an optional`workdir`
param, so:
- If specified and is an absolute path, it should be used to resolve
relative paths
- If specified and is a relative path, should be resolved against
`Config.cwd` and then any relative paths will be resolved against the
result
- If `workdir` is not specified on the function call, relative paths
should be resolved against `Config.cwd`
Note that we had a similar issue in the TypeScript CLI that was fixed in
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/556.
As part of the fix, this PR introduces `ApplyPatchAction` so clients can
deal with that instead of the raw `HashMap<PathBuf,
ApplyPatchFileChange>`. This enables us to enforce, by construction,
that all paths contained in the `ApplyPatchAction` are absolute paths.
When processing an `apply_patch` tool call, we were already computing
the new file content in order to compute the unified diff. Before this
PR, we were shelling out to `patch(1)` to apply the unified diff once
the user accepted the change, but this updates the code to just retain
the new file content and use it to write the file when the user accepts.
This simplifies deployment because it no longer assumes `patch(1)` is on
the host.
Note this change is internal to the Codex agent and does not affect
`protocol.rs`.
As stated in `codex-rs/README.md`:
Today, Codex CLI is written in TypeScript and requires Node.js 22+ to
run it. For a number of users, this runtime requirement inhibits
adoption: they would be better served by a standalone executable. As
maintainers, we want Codex to run efficiently in a wide range of
environments with minimal overhead. We also want to take advantage of
operating system-specific APIs to provide better sandboxing, where
possible.
To that end, we are moving forward with a Rust implementation of Codex
CLI contained in this folder, which has the following benefits:
- The CLI compiles to small, standalone, platform-specific binaries.
- Can make direct, native calls to
[seccomp](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/seccomp.2.html) and
[landlock](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/landlock.7.html) in
order to support sandboxing on Linux.
- No runtime garbage collection, resulting in lower memory consumption
and better, more predictable performance.
Currently, the Rust implementation is materially behind the TypeScript
implementation in functionality, so continue to use the TypeScript
implmentation for the time being. We will publish native executables via
GitHub Releases as soon as we feel the Rust version is usable.
