VS Code Opens External Links from Codex Extension Without User Consent

Codex
1

When using the Codex extension in Visual Studio Code, the extension opens external websites without the user consent prompt/confirmation flow I observe with the Copilot extension. This appears to bypass expected external-link protection behavior and increases the risk of drive-by navigation to attacker-controlled sites.

Clarification: A prompt/UI element may appear, but it does not actually restrict navigation - VSCode still opens the link without requiring explicit consent.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Install Visual Studio Code and the Codex extension.

  2. Configure/sign in to Codex as required.

  3. Prompt something to make it shows the hyperlinks

  4. Click a link rendered in Codex output

  5. Observe: a prompt/UI may appear, but the external website still opens without requiring explicit user confirmation/consent

  6. Repeat the same scenario with GitHub Copilot (or Copilot Chat) under the same VS Code settings.

  7. Observe: Copilot requires explicit consent / blocks / properly gates external navigation.

Environment

  • VSCode Version: 1.109.5

  • Commit: 072586267e68ece9a47aa43f8c108e0dcbf44622

  • Date: 2026-02-19T19:43:32.382Z

  • Electron: 39.3.0

  • ElectronBuildId: 13313481

  • Chromium: 142.0.7444.265

  • Node.js: 22.21.1

  • V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0

  • OS: Darwin arm64 25.3.0

  • Codex Version: 0.4.76

Suggested Fix / Mitigations

  • Add a hard consent gate: do not open external URLs until the user explicitly approves (e.g., “Open” button).
1 Like
2

Welcome to the forum!

You are welcome to discuss Codex-related issues here. However, the appropriate place to formally report bugs or request fixes is the GitHub issues tab for the OpenAI Codex repository:

https://github.com/openai/codex/issues

I used ChatGPT to search for an existing or closely related issue and did not find one that matches this problem. There was a closed issue suggesting reverting to an earlier version of the VS Code extension, but I would not consider that a proper or long-term solution.

You may want to open a new issue on GitHub so that the OpenAI developers are aware of the problem and can track it appropriately.

1 Like
3

Hi,

Thank you for your response!

I will file an issue for this.

1 Like
4

Nice.