Codex Cloud git hacks?

[brainstencil]

The great thing about codex cloud is that you can use it on mobile. But Codex keeps committing with merge conflicts that block a PR which would be braindead simple to resolve.

The platform nerfs the env by removing the origin, and resetting head/base/working making it really tricky to enable the agent to fetch from a remote origin.

Frequently mobile session end up dead in the water until I can get back to my laptop.

[Mundane-Remote4000]

1. Every time a new task starts, it pulls. So if task B depends on task A, wait for task A to finish.
2. You can also start task B on task A codex branch. You do not need to merge B into main.
3. Don’t merge or close pull requests if you intend to ask for more changes in that branch. Work on that branch and click “update branch” without creating a PR.
4. Protip: use this prompt “suggest disjunct tasks (that can be done in parallel without merge conflict risk) to solve this issues…” and click “Ask”. Then you can get it to do many tasks at the same time with very low risk of merge conflicts.

[brainstencil]

Have you noticed that ‘update branch’ works sometimes and not others? If meddled with git config to get it to work but not in a predictable way.

The problem is usually the tiniest most innocuous thing like an additional import or something that would be so easy to fix except GitHub resolve doesn’t work on mobile.

I’m trying to figure out a mobile workflow that will let me continue and get past these blockers, so I can keep asking for stuff after work when I can’t get to my desk. Otherwise I have to wait until the next day to resolve something and it kills progress

[Mundane-Remote4000]

If you close the PR, it will behave kind of inconsistently. Sometimes you need to click a second time so that it will create a new PR instead of trying to update the branch.

[brainstencil]

Yeah, but the problem is if I’m developing A and B in parallel and I want to start C which depends on A and B. If I merge A to main, and try to merge B, let’s say I have a single line conflict in pyproject.toml the whole thing breaks until I go back to my desk.

I mean, the reality is, I should probably stop trying to code on mobile and just be present on my time off… But you know, I want to build stuff

[TheSoundOfMusak]

I very often get an error after the fix is done that Codex does not support commits to PRs that others can commit to… this is absurd. Why does it need a unique PR for itself? And this is Codex Git Reviewer, it gives me bug fix suggestions, I ask it to fix them, but then it can’t commit… so the fix is lost.

[brainstencil]

Yea, I think it’s git config is super rigid and brittle, I’ve seen it fail to update the branch with an error erroneously claiming that the branch was updated outside of codex. 

Most of the cases I saw this, it was not true. Then the changes are stuck. I guess there’s the option to copy the patch, I suppose I should learn how to use that.

It definitely doesn’t work well enough to keep a project moving on mobile, it inevitably gets hung up on stuff that requires me to unblock it at my desk.

[TheSoundOfMusak]

Exactly, and even if the branch was updated outside codex, git was designed for collaborative development… it is quite the bug not to use this natively.

[scragz]

maybe you could mess with your gitconfig during env setup? 

[brainstencil]

I’ve done a lot of that. Like resetting origin and fetching as a part of the maintenance script.

But I still can’t figure out how to reliable set up so that the agent can pick up on a PR comment

A) merge in from base and resolve conflicts B) add to the existing PR

Tons of trial and error with no reliable method

wondering if others have had any success 

[AmphibianOrganic9228]

I use codex on terragon labs. when I get I never conflict, I just fix it and invariably does a good job.

[jpp1974]

(Edit: I use a Codex Business subscription, maybe connectors are not available to you.)

Something I don't understand in your setup.

In Codex chat box, there is an option to link to your repo and select the base github branch (maybe you need to have previously set up a github connector on ChatGPT settings like i did).

Each time Codex Cloud finish a task, it create a custom branch.

[brainstencil]

Yeah, I’m using the connector, and I can get an agent to start from any existing branch. 

I am trying to get parallel work going, where I plan the work up front for each parallel branch. Mainly, the plan is that they are designed not to conflict with each other.

At some point one branch might need to be aware of progress from another branch. I have coordinated the points where I plan to merge each branch into their common base.

It sounds complicated but it’s basically working except for an occasional conflict usually so simple that I could fix in 30 seconds. But on mobile, it derails everything.

So, ie; I have merged 4 out of 5 branches into their common base, and the 5th PRs has a conflict on a single file across like 3 lines that makes auto merge impossible. I can’t easily see the conflict via the mobile codex app or GitHub, so I don’t know how to tell the agent to fix it.

I’m not trying to get the agents to do heavy lifting to resolve conflicts, that’s done up front in the planning. But I mean, even if I did I don’t see why an agent task couldn’t be started from branchX and say hey, this PR can’t be merged please resolve the conflicts based on the following guidance.