Codex Bumper

Codex Bumper extension logo

Visual Studio Marketplace | Open VSX Registry | Latest VSIX

Codex Bumper is an unofficial VS Code and Antigravity IDE extension for people who need to search local Codex chat history or recover precious context after an older chat falls out of the visible recent list.

Codex may keep older saved sessions locally while only showing a recent subset in the picker or app history. When that happens, a chat can feel missing even though the conversation file is still in ~/.codex/sessions. Codex Bumper gives you a small browser for those local chats and a one-click bump button that says hi to the selected chat, updates its local history metadata, and moves it back into recent history.

What It Does

Shows local Codex chats from ~/.codex/session_index.jsonl and ~/.codex/sessions.
Recovers missing chat names from the saved thread name or first user message.
Searches chat names and user/assistant message content with matching-message previews.
Opens a readable transcript for a selected chat.
Adds a Bump: say hi action for each chat.
Bumping writes a tiny hi user turn plus assistant reply into the saved session file.
Bumping updates both the legacy session_index.jsonl index and the current Codex SQLite recency metadata.
Bumping opens the Codex sidebar after updating the chat's recency metadata.
Works for default Codex installs and lets users override the Codex home path.

Why This Exists

Some Codex conversations contain hard-won debugging context: a VM recovery, a payer investigation, an EOB fetch flow, a long code review, or an exact sequence of decisions. If the chat is not visible in the latest history window, finding it manually is slow. This extension is for bringing that context back to the surface without hand-editing JSONL files.

Install

Codex Bumper is published in both major VS Code extension registries:

Editor	Registry	Install
Antigravity IDE	Open VSX	Open Extensions, search for `Codex Bumper`, and select Install.
Visual Studio Code	Visual Studio Marketplace	Open Extensions, search for `Codex Bumper`, and select Install.
Other VS Code-compatible editors	Open VSX or VSIX	Use the editor's extension search or install the latest VSIX.

Antigravity IDE uses Open VSX as its extension registry, so the Open VSX listing is the normal install and update path for Antigravity IDE users. Registry installations can receive new Codex Bumper versions through the editor's usual extension update mechanism.

VS Code users can also install it from a terminal:

code --install-extension mparasha.codex-bumper

Requirements

VS Code 1.107+, Antigravity IDE, or another compatible IDE on macOS, Linux, or Windows.
Codex installed locally.
Local Codex history stored under ~/.codex, or a custom path configured with codexBumper.codexHome.

For WSL, containers, and remote workspaces, Codex Bumper must run where the Codex history files are visible. Set codexBumper.codexHome to that environment's Codex home when it differs from the default.

Usage

Open the Codex Bumper activity bar view.
Click the search icon to search chat names and message content. Clear the search to restore the complete list.
Select a chat to view its transcript.
Click Bump: say hi from the transcript header or the chat row context action.
Codex Bumper opens the Codex sidebar. Once Codex refreshes its history, the bumped chat appears near the top.

The first content search builds a local index and can take longer for large histories. Later searches only reindex session files that changed. Search stays on the local machine and indexes user and assistant messages, not tool calls, injected editor context, or workspace files.

Codex does not currently expose a supported command for refreshing its history list. Codex Bumper therefore does not force-reload Codex webviews; doing so can destabilize the Codex extension in some compatible editors. If the already-open list is stale, reload Codex once and the persisted bump will appear.

Settings

codexBumper.codexHome: optional override for the Codex home directory. Defaults to ~/.codex.
codexBumper.sqliteHome: optional override for the directory containing state_5.sqlite. Defaults to CODEX_SQLITE_HOME, then the Codex home directory.
codexBumper.bumpAssistantReply: reply text written with the bump turn. Defaults to Hi. I'm here.

Safety Notes

Codex Bumper only edits local Codex history files when you explicitly bump a chat:

session_index.jsonl
matching sessions/**/*.jsonl
state_5.sqlite history timestamps for the matching thread

Search creates an extension-local SQLite index containing searchable copies of user and assistant message text. The editor stores that index in Codex Bumper's private global storage. Codex Bumper does not call Codex models, send network requests, read workspace source files, or modify any project repository.

Using the extension does not create model or API charges. Codex's local history format can change between releases, so a future Codex update may require a matching Codex Bumper update.

Development

npm install
npm run compile
npm run package

The generated .vsix can be installed into Antigravity IDE with:

antigravity --install-extension codex-bumper-0.1.5.vsix

Publishing a GitHub release runs the repository's publish workflow for both Visual Studio Marketplace and Open VSX. An ordinary push to GitHub does not publish a marketplace update.

License

MIT