Save chat/history in the VS Code Codex extension

[Sumukh-Bharadvaja]

Right now, Codex preserves conversations on GitHub (PR reviews), but the VS Code extension doesn’t offer a built-in “save chat/history” view. This makes it hard to revisit past sessions or share context. Feature request: add persistent, searchable chat history in the extension (per workspace), with export/share options and optional sync to PRs.

[osiixy]

I support this request but I even do not care if it is not per workspace basis.
The session histories are saved in ~/.code/sessions. I want to reach them in the plugin also.
The codex CLI itself supports resume, which shows the previous session and even continuation is possible with it.

So it is just matter of integrating it into the MCP bridge part of the plugin and render it in webview.

(I was able to modify the plugin for myself and the histories of previous sessions showed up,
I was just not able to continue the discussion.)

[jazzyalex]

Just to add a data point here: Codex (CLI and VS Code) already writes local session logs as JSONL “rollout” files under ~/.codex/sessions/YYYY/MM/DD/rollout-*.jsonl (or $CODEX_HOME/sessions/...), not ~/.code/sessions.

I’ve been working on a companion macOS app called Agent Sessions that lives on top of those logs.

•	Reads the same rollout-*.jsonl files the CLI and VS Code extension produce
•	Groups them by repo / working directory (so effectively “per workspace”)
•	Gives you a very fast searchable session history UI, independent of the Codex panel
•	Lets you inspect full conversations and basic analytics

•	Plus many more - resume, analytics, git context, limit tracking in menu bar 

So the logging and resume story you describe is already solid at the Codex layer – the missing piece is exactly the UI you’re asking for inside VS Code. Until that exists natively in the extension, Agent Sessions can act as the history browser on top of ~/.codex/sessions without any extra setup or MCP wiring from the user’s side.

[pbarker]

This desperately needs to be per workspace, its so much worse than cursor or windsurf

[jazzyalex]

I repeat my comment above to make sure you can see it too --

Just to add a data point here: Codex (CLI and VS Code) already writes local session logs as JSONL “rollout” files under ~/.codex/sessions/YYYY/MM/DD/rollout-*.jsonl (or $CODEX_HOME/sessions/...), not ~/.code/sessions.

I’ve been working on a companion macOS app called Agent Sessions that lives on top of those logs.

•	Reads the same rollout-*.jsonl files the CLI and VS Code extension produce
•	Groups them by repo / working directory (so effectively “per workspace”)
•	Gives you a very fast searchable session history UI, independent of the Codex panel
•	Lets you inspect full conversations and basic analytics

•	Plus many more - resume, analytics, git context, limit tracking in menu bar 

So the logging and resume story you describe is already solid at the Codex layer – the missing piece is exactly the UI you’re asking for inside VS Code. Until that exists natively in the extension, Agent Sessions can act as the history browser on top of ~/.codex/sessions without any extra setup or MCP wiring from the user’s side.

[jazzyalex]

FWIW, Codex actually already has a pretty solid story for logging chats — it’s just not exposed as a nice per-workspace history UI in the VS Code extension yet.

Local tasks (whether started from the CLI or from the VS Code extension) get written as JSONL “rollout” files under something like:

~/.codex/sessions/YYYY/MM/DD/rollout-*.jsonl
or $CODEX_HOME/sessions/...

Those files contain the full conversation: user/assistant messages, tools, errors, etc. That’s how codex resume works and how various small tools/scripts can reconstruct past sessions. The problem you’re running into is mainly on the UI side: the VS Code extension doesn’t yet surface that history in a stable, per-workspace way, so it feels like chats just disappear when you close the window or restart.

As a workaround, I’ve been building a small companion app called Agent Sessions that sits directly on top of ~/.codex/sessions and treats those rollout logs as the source of truth.

•	Reads the same JSONL session files that Codex CLI + the VS Code extension write
•	Groups sessions by repo/working directory (so effectively “per workspace”)
•	Gives you a searchable timeline of conversations (CLI + IDE)
•	Lets you inspect full chats and basic analytics

That obviously doesn’t replace a first-class history panel inside the Codex extension (which I agree would be ideal), but it does solve the core “I want persistent, per-project history I can browse and search” problem today, without needing any extra config in Codex itself.