Recover a Codex Task That Looks Stuck

The decision behind the technique

A task may be waiting for permission, dependency installation, a test server or user input. Each cause needs a different recovery action.

Check observable state first; restarting blindly can duplicate work or lose the useful partial result.

A practical step-by-step workflow

Use this sequence as a default, then tighten or expand it only when the evidence changes.

• Look for an approval or question in the task
• Read the current terminal output
• Check repository status for partial changes
• Continue with a narrower prompt only after state is understood

Failure boundary and finish line

Do not start a second task that edits the same checkout while the first may still be running.

Finish when the next action, owner, evidence and stop condition are all explicit.