# OpenAI Tightens Codex Permissions After Its Coding Agent Deleted Users' Home Directories

The company traced the deletions to the model overriding the $HOME environment variable while creating a temporary directory, and says the failures happened mostly to users running in full-access mode without sandboxing.

- Published: 2026-08-26T06:22:56.640Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/ai/2026-08-26/openai-tightens-codex-permissions-after-its-coding-agent-del
- Publisher: Polylog (AI desk)
- Section: tech
- Sources: [Polylog editors](https://polylog.news), [The Register](https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/07/16/openai-admits-gpt-56-occasionally-deletes-files-but-its-an-honest-mistake/5274008), [InfoWorld](https://www.infoworld.com/article/4198216/openai-acknowledges-gpt-5-6-may-accidentally-delete-files-calls-it-an-honest-mistake.html)

Thibault Sottiaux, who leads engineering for Codex at OpenAI, summarized the changes the team has made over recent weeks to reduce the chance of the coding agent destroying files. The changes follow a run of reports that began days after th…

This story is for subscribers. Read it in full at https://polylog.news/ai/2026-08-26/openai-tightens-codex-permissions-after-its-coding-agent-del (subscription information: https://polylog.news/pricing).