Desktop side chats expire without returning their outcome to the parent conversation #46717

Summary

A Codex Desktop side chat can produce a substantive result, but the parent conversation cannot identify the phrase “side chat,” discover that side chat, or read its messages/final outcome. The side chat then expires after being idle and cannot be resumed. This leaves the result stranded unless the user manually copies it back into the parent conversation.

Reproduction

1. In a Codex Desktop conversation, open a side chat.
2. Ask the side chat to analyze a topic and wait for its final response.
3. Return to the parent conversation and ask whether it can see “the side chat” and its final outcome.
4. The parent may interpret “side chat” as another task/thread and search unrelated tasks. It cannot retrieve the actual side chat or its result.
5. Leave the side chat idle until it expires. The UI then says: “Side chat expired. This temporary chat can't be resumed. You can read the messages already received until you remove it from your side chats.”

Actual behavior

• “Side chat” is not understood as a first-class Codex UI object by the parent agent.
• Side chats are not exposed through the normal thread/task APIs or the accessible local conversation rollout.
• The parent cannot read or summarize the side chat’s completed result.
• The side chat automatically expires and cannot be resumed.
• The only recovery path is manual screenshots or copying by the user.

Expected behavior

At least one of the following should be supported:

• The parent conversation can enumerate and read side chats created from it, including their final outcome.
• A completed side chat automatically returns a compact result to the parent conversation.
• The user can explicitly promote/merge a side chat into the parent conversation before or after expiry.
• Side-chat expiry preserves a durable readable transcript and a stable reference the parent agent understands.

The product should also define “side chat” in the agent-visible interface vocabulary so the parent does not confuse it with a separate task, subagent, or sidebar conversation.

Impact

Side chats are most useful for bounded exploratory work, but their output can silently become inaccessible to the conversation that needs to act on it. The user must notice the problem before expiry and manually rescue the result, which defeats the feature’s handoff value.

Environment

• Codex Desktop on macOS
• Codex runtime observed in the affected session: 0.155.0-alpha.9.2
• Observed September 19, 2026