Codex desktop app shows verbose tool-trace rows in chat and hurts readability #18508

Summary

In the Codex desktop app on macOS, recent builds now show many tool-trace rows directly in the chat transcript, such as:

• “Before using the tool”
• “After using the tool”
• “Read thread terminal”
• “completed”

These entries were not exposed like this before, and they now make the conversation significantly harder to read.

Why this is a problem

The tool-trace rows add a lot of visual noise and break the flow of normal chat usage. They take too much vertical space and make it harder to follow the actual assistant response.

This feels like a UX regression in the Codex desktop app.

Expected behavior

Please add a user-facing setting to either:

• hide tool traces entirely, or
• collapse them by default into a compact one-line summary that can be expanded on demand

Example of a better compact display:

• Tool call (terminal): completed
• Tool call (search): completed

Actual behavior

Every tool step appears inline in the transcript, which makes the conversation cluttered and much less readable.

Platform

• Codex desktop app
• macOS

Additional context

Feedback was already submitted in-app as well.

Chat ID:
019da299-5406-7592-9147-b7bbc26b48c7