`SandboxPolicy::ReadOnly` previously implied broad read access and could
not express a narrower read surface.
This change introduces an explicit read-access model so we can support
user-configurable read restrictions in follow-up work, while preserving
current behavior today.
It also ensures unsupported backends fail closed for restricted-read
policies instead of silently granting broader access than intended.
## What
- Added `ReadOnlyAccess` in protocol with:
- `Restricted { include_platform_defaults, readable_roots }`
- `FullAccess`
- Updated `SandboxPolicy` to carry read-access configuration:
- `ReadOnly { access: ReadOnlyAccess }`
- `WorkspaceWrite { ..., read_only_access: ReadOnlyAccess }`
- Preserved existing behavior by defaulting current construction paths
to `ReadOnlyAccess::FullAccess`.
- Threaded the new fields through sandbox policy consumers and call
sites across `core`, `tui`, `linux-sandbox`, `windows-sandbox`, and
related tests.
- Updated Seatbelt policy generation to honor restricted read roots by
emitting scoped read rules when full read access is not granted.
- Added fail-closed behavior on Linux and Windows backends when
restricted read access is requested but not yet implemented there
(`UnsupportedOperation`).
- Regenerated app-server protocol schema and TypeScript artifacts,
including `ReadOnlyAccess`.
## Compatibility / rollout
- Runtime behavior remains unchanged by default (`FullAccess`).
- API/schema changes are in place so future config wiring can enable
restricted read access without another policy-shape migration.
Today, there is a single capability SID that allows the sandbox to write
to
* workspace (cwd)
* tmp directories if enabled
* additional writable roots
This change splits those up, so that each workspace has its own
capability SID, while tmp and additional roots, which are
installation-wide, are still governed by the "generic" capability SID
This isolates workspaces from each other in terms of sandbox write
access.
Also allows us to protect <cwd>/.codex when codex runs in a specific
<cwd>
## Summary
- Use `std::env::split_paths` to parse PATH entries in audit candidate
collection
- Add a unit test covering multiple PATH entries (including spaces)
## Testing
- `cargo test -p codex-windows-sandbox` (Windows)
Fixes#9317
Never treat .codex or .codex/.sandbox as a workspace root.
Handle write permissions to .codex/.sandbox in a single method so that
the sandbox setup/runner can write logs and other setup files to that
directory.
## Description
Introduced `ExternalSandbox` policy to cover use case when sandbox
defined by outside environment, effectively it translates to
`SandboxMode#DangerFullAccess` for file system (since sandbox configured
on container level) and configurable `network_access` (either Restricted
or Enabled by outside environment).
as example you can configure `ExternalSandbox` policy as part of
`sendUserTurn` v1 app_server API:
```
{
"conversationId": <id>,
"cwd": <cwd>,
"approvalPolicy": "never",
"sandboxPolicy": {
"type": ""external-sandbox",
"network_access": "enabled"/"restricted"
},
"model": <model>,
"effort": <effort>,
....
}
```
a few fixes based on testing feedback:
* ensure cap_sid file is always written by elevated setup.
* always log to same file whether using elevated sandbox or not
* process potentially slow ACE write operations in parallel
* dedupe write roots so we don't double process any
* don't try to create read/write ACEs on the same directories, due to
race condition
Changes the `writable_roots` field of the `WorkspaceWrite` variant of
the `SandboxPolicy` enum from `Vec<PathBuf>` to `Vec<AbsolutePathBuf>`.
This is helpful because now callers can be sure the value is an absolute
path rather than a relative one. (Though when using an absolute path in
a Seatbelt config policy, we still have to _canonicalize_ it first.)
Because `writable_roots` can be read from a config file, it is important
that we are able to resolve relative paths properly using the parent
folder of the config file as the base path.
- updating helpers, refactoring some functions that will be used in the
elevated sandbox
- better logging
- better and faster handling of ACL checks/writes
- No functional change—legacy restricted-token sandbox
remains the only path.
clean up the code for scanning for world writable directories
One path (selecting a sandbox mode from /approvals) was using an
incorrect method that did not use the new method of creating deny aces
to prevent writing to those directories. Now all paths are the same.
Our Restricted Token contains 3 SIDs (Logon, Everyone, {WorkspaceWrite
Capability || ReadOnly Capability})
because it must include Everyone, that left us vulnerable to directories
that allow writes to Everyone. Even though those directories do not have
ACEs that enable our capability SIDs to write to them, they could still
be written to even in ReadOnly mode, or even in WorkspaceWrite mode if
they are outside of a writable root.
A solution to this is to explicitly add *Deny* ACEs to these
directories, always for the ReadOnly Capability SID, and for the
WorkspaceWrite SID if the directory is outside of a workspace root.
Under a restricted token, Windows always checks Deny ACEs before Allow
ACEs so even though our restricted token would allow a write to these
directories due to the Everyone SID, it fails first because of the Deny
ACE on the capability SID
Fix world-writable audit false positives by expanding generic
permissions with MapGenericMask and then checking only concrete write
bits. The earlier check looked for FILE_GENERIC_WRITE/generic masks
directly, which shares bits with read permissions and could flag an
Everyone read ACE as writable.
3 improvements:
1. show up to 3 actual paths that are world-writable
2. do the scan/warning for Read-Only mode too, because it also applies
there
3. remove the "Cancel" option since it doesn't always apply (like on
startup)
1. scan many more directories since it's much faster than the original
implementation
2. limit overall scan time to 2s
3. skip some directories that are noisy - ApplicationData, Installer,
etc.
Show a warning when Auto Sandbox mode becomes enabled, if we detect
Everyone-writable directories, since they cannot be protected by the
current implementation of the Sandbox.
This PR also includes changes to how we detect Everyone-writable to be
*much* faster
- Added the new codex-windows-sandbox crate that builds both a library
entry point (run_windows_sandbox_capture) and a CLI executable to launch
commands inside a Windows restricted-token sandbox, including ACL
management, capability SID provisioning, network lockdown, and output
capture
(windows-sandbox-rs/src/lib.rs:167, windows-sandbox-rs/src/main.rs:54).
- Introduced the experimental WindowsSandbox feature flag and wiring so
Windows builds can opt into the sandbox:
SandboxType::WindowsRestrictedToken, the in-process execution path, and
platform sandbox selection now honor the flag (core/src/features.rs:47,
core/src/config.rs:1224, core/src/safety.rs:19,
core/src/sandboxing/mod.rs:69, core/src/exec.rs:79,
core/src/exec.rs:172).
- Updated workspace metadata to include the new crate and its
Windows-specific dependencies so the core crate can link against it
(codex-rs/
Cargo.toml:91, core/Cargo.toml:86).
- Added a PowerShell bootstrap script that installs the Windows
toolchain, required CLI utilities, and builds the workspace to ease
development
on the platform (scripts/setup-windows.ps1:1).
- Landed a Python smoke-test suite that exercises
read-only/workspace-write policies, ACL behavior, and network denial for
the Windows sandbox
binary (windows-sandbox-rs/sandbox_smoketests.py:1).
