The user approved one administrator-owned instruction source shared by root and ax_julian, correction of temporary/documentation paths, and migration of embedded operational procedures into this Wiki.js knowledgebase. No application repair, credential change, deployment, or AutoCoder restart was authorized or performed.
/etc/codex/instructions/AGENTS.md and adjacent standard_operating_procedures/; root-owned, directories 0755 and Markdown files 0644.495e048, consolidation commit f54caa3. Workspace commit 27113a8 records profile links and scoped instruction cleanup. Neither repository has a configured remote; no push was performed./home/ax_julian/temp (verified local ext4), with bounded RAM permitted. AutoCoder application documentation uses repository-relative documentation/.Both profiles resolve to identical canonical files. Readability and non-writability were checked under ax_julian; nine guidance files and eight relative links passed ownership/link checks. Global content changed only in ownership and route-neutral planning wording; stop orders, deployment permissions, the fallback-only manual reserve and 24-hour reassessment were preserved. Existing unrelated workspace changes remain unstaged.
An offline fresh root Codex invocation sent the complete global and workspace instructions to a loopback-only mock model endpoint; no model inference was performed. A corresponding ax_julian invocation failed during initialization with permission denied. Existing root-owned profile files, including auth.json and queue state, were observed; the exact failing access was not isolated. These files were not changed. Non-root instruction readability is verified, but successful non-root session startup remains unverified.
The test ignored user config and executable rules to isolate instruction discovery and avoid external tool/model activity. It does not establish that every configured integration starts successfully. Existing sessions were not restarted; new sessions rebuild their instruction chain.
The original global rules and SOP content remain recoverable from the canonical repository's baseline commit. Revert only task-owned changes if necessary; do not overwrite unrelated workspace edits or infer permission to restart stopped services.
The user authorized completion of SOP cleanup, narrowly scoped non-root runtime ownership repairs, and offline startup/loading checks. SOP commit 9566d7c replaces the ambiguous 24-hour run-duration wording with a mandatory reassessment point, not automatic cancellation. It also removes the unidentified reset-procedure reference: resets require explicit authorization, the intended account, an exhausted allowance and verified provider conditions/method; otherwise preserve work and wait. No reset credits were consumed.
A task-local syscall tracer, running as ax_julian and printing only denied paths, confirmed:
auth.json is unreadable by ax_julian (root:root, 0600). Login-status checking fails on that denied read.installation_id. Queue database opens were also denied.Only these non-root runtime objects had ownership restored from root:root to ax_julian:ax_julian:
/home/ax_julian/.codex/installation_id/home/ax_julian/.codex/queue_1.sqlite, queue_1.sqlite-wal, and queue_1.sqlite-shm/home/ax_julian/.codex/tmp/arg0/codex-arg0hiTFq8 directory and its empty .lock.Checks established regular single-link runtime files, preserved content hashes and modes across the four file ownership corrections, and no open process file descriptors to those objects at inspection. The generated launcher directory contained only the empty lock and known Codex executable symlinks, with no process holding an open file there. No recursive ownership change was used; credential ownership/mode and binary targets were not changed. The normal subsequent Codex startup cleaned the inactive launcher residue.
Fresh root and ax_julian invocations then both reached the loopback mock model endpoint with the complete shared and workspace instructions. There was no model inference or paid model request. These probes ignored user config and executable rules to isolate instruction discovery from external integrations. Thirteen shared guidance files and twelve relative links passed ownership/link checks; ax_julian could read every SOP. No instruction overrides were present at either tested global profile or the workspace root; combined global/workspace text was 8,888 bytes. This does not audit all nested application repositories or external integrations.
Remaining authority boundary: ordinary authenticated non-root usage still cannot read its root-owned auth.json. No credentials were displayed, transferred, rotated, or made more accessible. A separate explicit decision is required before granting ax_julian access to that stored login or arranging a separate login. Instruction loading is verified; authenticated non-root operation is not yet working. AutoCoder and existing sessions were not restarted.
Temporary tracer/probe sources and binaries are task-owned and removed before handoff. Runtime ownership changes and their original owners/modes are recorded here for recovery; do not overwrite account data or broadly change profile ownership.
The user explicitly approved allowing ax_julian to use the login already stored in /home/ax_julian/.codex/auth.json. The file was verified as a regular, single-link file owned by root:root with mode 0600, then only its ownership was changed to ax_julian:ax_julian. Mode remained 0600 and the credential content hash was unchanged; no values were displayed or copied.
runuser -u ax_julian -- codex login status exited successfully and reported Logged in using ChatGPT, without the previous permission or stale-lock warnings. This resolves the previously recorded non-root credential-access blocker and confirms local recognition of the stored login. It is not a live provider-token validation or an end-to-end model request. No model call, reset, credential rotation, deployment or service restart was performed.
Recovery metadata: prior owner/group root:root; permissions 0600 unchanged. Reversing ownership would reinstate the non-root access failure and requires an authorized reason.