Codex SQLite trace logs reported to write terabytes to local SSDs

Category: Agentic coding
Status: developing
Sources: openai/codex issue #28224, HN
Summary: An open issue filed 2026-06-14 against openai/codex reports that the Codex CLI continuously writes a large volume of TRACE and INFO data to a local SQLite feedback log (~/.codex/logs_2.sqlite). The reporter measured about 37 TB written after roughly 21 days of uptime, extrapolating to about 640 TB per year, enough to approach the rated write endurance (around 600 TBW) of a 1 TB consumer SSD within a year. About 70% of the logged bytes come from a single TRACE target, codex_api::endpoint::responses_websocket. The figures are one user's report; OpenAI has not posted a fix or confirmation in the issue.
Why it matters: A coding agent generating sustained background disk writes at this rate is an unbudgeted hardware-wear cost for developers running it continuously.
Follow-up: Watch for an OpenAI maintainer response, a logging-volume fix, and independent confirmation of the write rate.