Cursor control doesn't work as expected

[DodgyBadger]

In a codex session, if I start from a blank line and type a prompt, I can backspace but left and right arrow keys don't work. If I press ctrl-backspace (which I would expect to delete a whole word), nothing happens but now left-right arrows keys work and backspace no longer works. Going to the start of the line and deleting always works. If I delete the entire prompt, the behavior resets.

Cursor works normally in a shell terminal. Have not tried in a Claude or Gemini session.

Chrome
Latest Codex CLI
Windows 11

[Ark0N]

Root cause found, and it turned out to be the same root cause behind all four of your codex reports: the zero-lag local echo overlay. It buffers typed characters in the browser until Enter (on by default on touch-capable devices, which is why your machine had it, and shell tabs already bypassed it, which is why the shell behaved). So arrows were being forwarded to a composer codex thought was empty, Ctrl+Backspace hit a code path that flushed the buffered text (which is why arrows suddenly started working), and after that flush the overlay swallowed every backspace.

Fixed in v1.12.2: codex sessions now bypass the overlay entirely and use plain PTY echo, so every keystroke reaches codex as you type. Verified against a real codex 0.147 TUI driven by a headless browser (typing "hello", ArrowLeft twice, "X" yields "helXlo", and backspace keeps working after Ctrl+Backspace).

One upstream caveat: Ctrl+Backspace deletes a single character, not a whole word. xterm.js sends 0x08 for it, which codex maps to delete-one-char; real word-delete needs the kitty CSI-u encoding that xterm.js 6.0.0 cannot emit yet. That part fixes itself when xterm.js ships kitty support in 6.1.

Thanks for the razor-sharp report, the "ctrl-backspace toggles the behavior" detail is what cracked it. Please update and retest.

[DodgyBadger]

Verified fixed.

[Ark0N]

Thanks for verifying! Closing as fixed.

[Ark0N]

Update: #240 just merged a rework of how Codex sessions handle typing. The 1.12.2 fix already sent every keystroke straight to the PTY (no more buffering), and on top of that Codex now gets a mosh-style predictive echo: keys still go out immediately and unchanged, while the predicted glyph is painted locally and swapped invisibly when the real echo lands. Cursor control goes straight through: the E2E retest for this issue types "hello", presses ArrowLeft twice, inserts "X" and asserts the submitted line is exactly "helXlo", including under a simulated 300ms RTT.

@DodgyBadger this ships in the next release (or right away via install.sh update if you run a git install). A retest on your setup would be much appreciated; your laptop is touch-capable so the predictive echo will be on by default, and turning Local Echo off in App Settings returns exact current behavior if anything looks off.