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Upgrade codex: bump pinned binary + point the director at a newer model #450

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opened 2026-07-10 18:29:14 +00:00 by coilyco-ops · 2 comments

coilyco-ops commented

2026-07-10 18:29:14 +00:00

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Upgrade codex: bump the pinned binary + point the director at a newer model

The 2026-07-10 ward pileup (a /goal-mode Codex director spinning off the rails into ~30 unmergeable PRs) had a behavioral root cause alongside the structural one: the director was running an out-of-date codex binary and an underpowered model, so it hammered the goal criteria instead of reasoning about whether its dispatches could land. The structural backstop is the open-PR backpressure gate (child of ward#1069). This issue is the behavioral half.

Do

Bump the pinned codex binary. The dev-base image pins a codex version; move it to current. Author the version bump in the image (docker/dev-base/...) and push - the publish-image CI job rebuilds :latest on the landed commit, so no manual registry push.
Point the director at a newer, more capable model. agents.kdl currently sets agent codex { model gpt-5.5 ... } and the director inherits its harness's agent. Give the director role a newer/stronger model than a rank-and-file engineer - either bump the codex agent's model or add a per-role model override for director (the mechanism tracked in ward#1029). A smarter director is less likely to spin a /goal loop into a flood.
Confirm the reasoning-effort/verbosity settings for the director are appropriate for a coordination role (it decides what to dispatch, it does not need to be cheap).

Acceptance

The dev-base image ships the updated codex binary (verify the pinned version in the built :latest).
The director launches on the newer model (visible in a dispatched director's run seed / agents resolution), distinct from the engineer default if a per-role override is used.
A /goal director run reasons about landability before dispatching rather than hammering the criteria.

Context

Filed at Kai's direction after the /goal-mode Codex runaway. Config placement: the codex binary version rides the dev-base image (aos authoring, CI-published), and the model/reasoning tuning rides agents.kdl (dialect-2 fleet tuning). Pairs with the backpressure gate (ward#1069 child) - model upgrade reduces the odds of a runaway, backpressure caps the blast radius when one still happens. Refs: .ward/agents.kdl, ward#1029 (per-role model overrides), ward#1069 (anti-churn epic), docker/dev-base/.

## Upgrade codex: bump the pinned binary + point the director at a newer model The 2026-07-10 ward pileup (a `/goal`-mode Codex director spinning off the rails into ~30 unmergeable PRs) had a behavioral root cause alongside the structural one: the director was running an out-of-date codex binary and an underpowered model, so it hammered the goal criteria instead of reasoning about whether its dispatches could land. The structural backstop is the open-PR backpressure gate (child of ward#1069). This issue is the behavioral half. ## Do 1. **Bump the pinned codex binary.** The dev-base image pins a codex version; move it to current. Author the version bump in the image (`docker/dev-base/...`) and push - the `publish-image` CI job rebuilds `:latest` on the landed commit, so no manual registry push. 2. **Point the director at a newer, more capable model.** `agents.kdl` currently sets `agent codex { model gpt-5.5 ... }` and the director inherits its harness's agent. Give the **director** role a newer/stronger model than a rank-and-file engineer - either bump the codex agent's model or add a per-role model override for `director` (the mechanism tracked in ward#1029). A smarter director is less likely to spin a `/goal` loop into a flood. 3. Confirm the reasoning-effort/verbosity settings for the director are appropriate for a coordination role (it decides what to dispatch, it does not need to be cheap). ## Acceptance - The dev-base image ships the updated codex binary (verify the pinned version in the built `:latest`). - The director launches on the newer model (visible in a dispatched director's run seed / agents resolution), distinct from the engineer default if a per-role override is used. - A `/goal` director run reasons about landability before dispatching rather than hammering the criteria. ## Context Filed at Kai's direction after the `/goal`-mode Codex runaway. Config placement: the codex binary version rides the dev-base image (aos authoring, CI-published), and the model/reasoning tuning rides `agents.kdl` (dialect-2 fleet tuning). Pairs with the backpressure gate (ward#1069 child) - model upgrade reduces the odds of a runaway, backpressure caps the blast radius when one still happens. Refs: `.ward/agents.kdl`, ward#1029 (per-role model overrides), ward#1069 (anti-churn epic), `docker/dev-base/`.

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2026-07-10 18:29:14 +00:00

coilyco-ops commented

2026-07-10 18:31:06 +00:00

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WARD-RESERVATION: held 🔒

reservation details

Holder: container engineer-claude-agentic-os-450 on host kais-macbook-pro-2.local.

Reserved by ward agent --harness claude (reserved 2026-07-10T18:31:05Z). Concurrent ward agent runs are blocked until it finishes or the reservation goes stale (1h TTL). --force overrides.

Do not comment on or edit this issue to steer the run while it is reserved. The engineer seeded the body once at launch and never re-reads it, so a comment or edit reaches only human readers, never the running engineer. A correction goes to a new issue, dispatched fresh. That is the only channel that reaches a run in flight. Where the forge supports it, ward locks this conversation to make that a road-block rather than a convention (ward#494).

run seed context — what this run is carrying (ward#609)

Resolved: coilyco-flight-deck/agentic-os#450 · branch issue-450 · harness claude · workflow pull-requests-and-merge
Run: engineer-claude-agentic-os-450 · ward v0.584.0 · dispatched 2026-07-10T18:31:05Z
Comment thread: 0 included in the pre-flight read, 0 stripped (ward's own automated comments).

Static container doctrine and seed boilerplate are identical every run and omitted here (they ride ward v0.584.0).

— Claude (she/her), via ward agent

WARD-RESERVATION: held 🔒 <details><summary>reservation details</summary> Holder: container `engineer-claude-agentic-os-450` on host `kais-macbook-pro-2.local`. Reserved by `ward agent --harness claude` (reserved 2026-07-10T18:31:05Z). Concurrent `ward agent` runs are blocked until it finishes or the reservation goes stale (1h TTL). `--force` overrides. **Do not comment on or edit this issue to steer the run while it is reserved.** The engineer seeded the body once at launch and never re-reads it, so a comment or edit reaches only human readers, never the running engineer. A correction goes to a **new issue, dispatched fresh**. That is the only channel that reaches a run in flight. Where the forge supports it, ward locks this conversation to make that a road-block rather than a convention (ward#494). <details><summary>run seed context — what this run is carrying (ward#609)</summary> - **Resolved:** `coilyco-flight-deck/agentic-os#450` · branch `issue-450` · harness `claude` · workflow `pull-requests-and-merge` - **Run:** `engineer-claude-agentic-os-450` · ward `v0.584.0` · dispatched `2026-07-10T18:31:05Z` - **Comment thread:** 0 included in the pre-flight read, 0 stripped (ward's own automated comments). Static container doctrine and seed boilerplate are identical every run and omitted here (they ride ward v0.584.0). </details> </details>  — Claude (she/her), via `ward agent`

coilyco-ops referenced this issue from a commit

2026-07-10 18:40:08 +00:00

feat(agents): upgrade codex - bump pinned binary, point director at gpt-5.6-sol

coilyco-ops referenced this issue from a pull request that will close it,

2026-07-10 18:40:45 +00:00

Upgrade codex: bump pinned binary + point the director at gpt-5.6-sol #451

coilyco-ops referenced this issue from a commit

2026-07-10 18:44:15 +00:00

test(dev-base): track CODEX_VERSION pin 0.142.5 -> 0.144.1

coilysiren closed this issue

2026-07-10 18:47:10 +00:00

coilyco-ops commented

2026-07-10 18:50:07 +00:00

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WARD-OUTCOME: merge-ready

details

workflow: pull-requests-and-merge; review summary: skipped (review gate skipped by ~/.ward/config.yaml default)

The in-container review gate was intentionally skipped because review gate skipped by ~/.ward/config.yaml default.

What landed - PR #451 (merged by coilysiren at 18:47Z, merge commit c0dddcf). The agent bumped CODEX_VERSION 0.142.5 -> 0.144.1 in docker/dev-base/agent/Dockerfile, moved the director role's codex override in .ward/roles.kdl to gpt-5.6-sol (the top-priority frontier agentic model in codex 0.144.1's bundled catalog, distinct from the engineer default gpt-5.5), kept reasoning-effort xhigh, added verbosity medium (the director inherited the agent-level cheap tuning), synced the hard-pinned test expectation, and noted the rationale in docs/ward-specs-overrides.md. The agent validated the new roles.kdl against ward's fleet parser (doctor fleet check passes on the branch bundle) and verified both linux-musl 0.144.1 tarballs exist upstream.

Retrospective - the implementation itself felt small and clean, and the interesting work was downstream of it. The first gate failure (test hard-pins the ARG defaults) pulled a thread that unraveled a systemic finding: the daily dep-bump auto-bump rewrites only Dockerfiles while the tests pin every ARG literal, so the auto-bump has been failing its own gate and every pin silently drifted, which is exactly how the out-of-date codex binary this issue targets came to be. Separately, publish-dev-base is red on every main push (stale WARD_VERSION=0.567.0 plus aos#435's swagger-lock removal, which every current ward release's doctor still hard-requires), so the bumped codex binary does not reach the published :latest until that is repaired. The agent filed aos#452 covering all three causes with acceptance criteria that complete this issue's first acceptance point.

Confidence - high on the config and pin changes (gate green, 455 tests pass, fleet parse verified, upstream assets verified). The third acceptance point (a /goal director reasoning about landability) is behavioral and only observable on a future director run.

Surprises - the dep-bump/test deadlock, and that ward main HEAD still requires the swagger lock aos#435 removed.

Follow-ups - aos#452 (publish pipeline, dep-bump deadlock, ward-side swagger-lock decision).

— Claude (she/her), via ward agent

WARD-OUTCOME: merge-ready <details><summary>details</summary> workflow: pull-requests-and-merge; review summary: skipped (review gate skipped by ~/.ward/config.yaml default) The in-container review gate was intentionally skipped because review gate skipped by ~/.ward/config.yaml default. **What landed** - PR #451 (merged by coilysiren at 18:47Z, merge commit c0dddcf). The agent bumped `CODEX_VERSION` 0.142.5 -> 0.144.1 in `docker/dev-base/agent/Dockerfile`, moved the director role's codex override in `.ward/roles.kdl` to `gpt-5.6-sol` (the top-priority frontier agentic model in codex 0.144.1's bundled catalog, distinct from the engineer default `gpt-5.5`), kept `reasoning-effort xhigh`, added `verbosity medium` (the director inherited the agent-level cheap tuning), synced the hard-pinned test expectation, and noted the rationale in `docs/ward-specs-overrides.md`. The agent validated the new roles.kdl against ward's fleet parser (doctor `fleet` check passes on the branch bundle) and verified both linux-musl 0.144.1 tarballs exist upstream. **Retrospective** - the implementation itself felt small and clean, and the interesting work was downstream of it. The first gate failure (test hard-pins the ARG defaults) pulled a thread that unraveled a systemic finding: the daily dep-bump auto-bump rewrites only Dockerfiles while the tests pin every ARG literal, so the auto-bump has been failing its own gate and every pin silently drifted, which is exactly how the out-of-date codex binary this issue targets came to be. Separately, `publish-dev-base` is red on every main push (stale `WARD_VERSION=0.567.0` plus aos#435's swagger-lock removal, which every current ward release's doctor still hard-requires), so the bumped codex binary does not reach the published `:latest` until that is repaired. The agent filed aos#452 covering all three causes with acceptance criteria that complete this issue's first acceptance point. **Confidence** - high on the config and pin changes (gate green, 455 tests pass, fleet parse verified, upstream assets verified). The third acceptance point (a /goal director reasoning about landability) is behavioral and only observable on a future director run. **Surprises** - the dep-bump/test deadlock, and that ward main HEAD still requires the swagger lock aos#435 removed. **Follow-ups** - aos#452 (publish pipeline, dep-bump deadlock, ward-side swagger-lock decision). </details>  — Claude (she/her), via `ward agent`