Session quota consumed without any user interaction (just opening sessions drains 18-24%) #19076

Environment

• Codex CLI version: codex-cli v0.123.0
• Subscription: Plus
• Model: gpt-5.3-codex (reasoning: low, summaries: auto)
• Platform: macOS (Intel iMac 2020)

What version of Codex are you using?

codex-cli v0.123.0 — confirmed via /status command output

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What issue are you seeing?

Session quota (both 5h and weekly limits) is being consumed without any user interaction. Simply opening a CLI session — without typing a single prompt — drains significant quota immediately. The bug also reproduces using the Codex CLI, not just the Mac App.

Observed quota drops:

• Opened 1-2 sessions with no prompts → -18% on 5h limit, -22% on weekly limit immediately
• Ran /status twice (no other commands) → -6% more on 5h limit in under 1 minute
• Total lost to zero user work: ~24% of 5h limit and ~23% of weekly limit

Current state after /status only:

5h limit:     76% left  (resets 03:00 on 23 Apr)
Weekly limit: 77% left  (resets 17:51 on 28 Apr)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Update codex-cli and authenticate with a Plus/Pro account
2. Activate the option Memories
3. Run codex in any local repository (e.g. one with staged changes)
4. Do NOT type any prompt — just run /status to check quota
5. Wait ~1 minute and run /status again
6. Observe the quota indicator has dropped significantly between the two /status calls

Expected Behavior

Quota should not be consumed unless the user explicitly sends a prompt or authorizes an agent action. Running /status or simply having an open idle session should consume zero quota.

Actual Behavior

• Opening a session immediately consumed ~18-24% of limits with no prompt sent
• Running /status twice consumed an additional ~6% of the 5h limit
• No agent task, shell command, or file operation was triggered by the user
• Context usage in the session showed 100% remaining (empty context), yet quota was being consumed in the background
• The session ID 019db868-e008-7c02-94d4-e0081182aeca was the only active session

Additional Context

This issue reproduces on both the Codex Mac App and the Codex CLI (codex-cli v0.123.0), confirming it is not UI-specific but a core agent/API issue.

Related issues:

• Reaching session limit without doing anything #19069 — Session limit reached without doing anything (background retry loop on invalid base64 image)
• quota limits % used without any requests #18972 — Quota limits % used without any requests (closed as duplicate, but the bug persists)

The silent background consumption makes it impossible to use the subscription effectively — the weekly limit can be exhausted before any real work is done.

Possible root causes:

1. CLI session init automatically indexes the repo (+150 staged files) and sends context to the API before any user prompt
2. Background polling or health-check loop sends model API requests during idle sessions
3. If a previous session had corrupted context (e.g. empty base64 image per Reaching session limit without doing anything #19069), background retries silently drain quota
4. /status command itself may be triggering a model API call instead of just reading a local cache