Codex Terminal Log Capture

Capture VS Code integrated terminal command output into a local workspace log file so Codex can inspect failures without reading the terminal buffer directly.

The extension writes to:

.codex-logs/vscode-terminal.log

Privacy Model

• Capture is disabled by default.
• Logs are written only to the local workspace.
• The extension does not upload logs or call network services.
• Terminal output can contain secrets, tokens, cookies, internal URLs, user data, or production logs. Enable capture only in workspaces where local log files are acceptable.
• The log rotates at 1 MB by default to reduce accidental large reads and token usage.

Usage

1. Run Codex Terminal Logs: Enable Capture from the command palette.
2. Run commands in the VS Code integrated terminal.
3. Ask Codex to inspect .codex-logs/vscode-terminal.log, or run Codex Terminal Logs: Open Log.
4. Run Codex Terminal Logs: Disable Capture when you no longer need capture.

The enable and disable commands store capture state in extension workspace state. They do not need to modify .vscode/settings.json.

The extension uses VS Code shell integration. It can capture output produced after capture is enabled and after shell integration reports a command start. It cannot recover historical terminal buffer content from before activation.

Commands

• Codex Terminal Logs: Enable Capture
• Codex Terminal Logs: Disable Capture
• Codex Terminal Logs: Open Log
• Codex Terminal Logs: Clear Log
• Codex Terminal Logs: Copy Log Path

Settings

{
  "codexTerminalLogs.enabled": false,
  "codexTerminalLogs.logDirectory": ".codex-logs",
  "codexTerminalLogs.logFile": "vscode-terminal.log",
  "codexTerminalLogs.maxBytes": 1048576,
  "codexTerminalLogs.stripAnsi": true
}

The codexTerminalLogs.enabled setting is optional. Prefer the enable/disable commands for normal use.

Token Control

When using Codex, inspect bounded tails or failure windows instead of reading the whole log:

wc -c .codex-logs/vscode-terminal.log
tail -n 120 .codex-logs/vscode-terminal.log
rg -n "error|failed|failure|traceback|exception|assert|失败|报错|ERROR|FAIL" .codex-logs/vscode-terminal.log

Avoid full-file reads such as:

cat .codex-logs/vscode-terminal.log

Notes

Supported shells follow VS Code shell integration support. On macOS this normally covers zsh, bash, fish, and pwsh.