fix(deploy): track Codex model catalog without .gitignore negation

[dgokeeffe]

Priority

P0 — Codex CLI is fully broken on deploy. Every deployed app fails with Error loading configuration: No such file or directory (os error 2) the first time a user types codex. Only this one-file gitignore change is needed to restore Codex.

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Summary

Fix for #24. Codex CLI errors with Error loading configuration: No such file or directory (os error 2) on every deployed app because databricks sync doesn't honor .gitignore negation patterns — it was excluding .codex/databricks-models.json along with the rest of .codex/, so the deployed ~/.codex/ ended up without the model catalog that config.toml references.

Change

Replaces in .gitignore:

-# Codex CLI generated/cached files (only the bundled model catalog is tracked)
-.codex/*
-!.codex/databricks-models.json
+# Codex CLI generated/cached files. The bundled model catalog
+# (.codex/databricks-models.json) is tracked. Listed file-by-file rather
+# than `.codex/* + !.codex/databricks-models.json` because `databricks sync`
+# (and several other gitignore-honoring tools) doesn't respect the negation
+# pattern — that broke the deploy of databricks-models.json to the app
+# workspace, which Codex needs to start.
+.codex/config.toml
+.codex/.env
+.codex/AGENTS.md
+.codex/.personality_migration
+.codex/memories/
+.codex/tmp/
+.codex/sessions/
+.codex/cron/
+.codex/skills/

Verification

$ git check-ignore .codex/databricks-models.json && echo IGNORED || echo TRACKED
TRACKED                                                       # ✓
$ for f in .codex/config.toml .codex/.env .codex/AGENTS.md .codex/memories/x .codex/tmp/y; do
    git check-ignore "$f" >/dev/null && echo "$f → ignored" || echo "$f → leaked"
  done
.codex/config.toml → ignored                                   # ✓
.codex/.env → ignored                                          # ✓
.codex/AGENTS.md → ignored                                     # ✓
.codex/memories/x → ignored                                    # ✓
.codex/tmp/y → ignored                                         # ✓

Test plan

• After merge, deploy a fresh CODA, confirm ~/.codex/databricks-models.json exists in the running container.
• Run codex in the deployed terminal — should not error with "No such file or directory".

Why not .databricksignore instead

.databricksignore is the alternative override path, but it's likely backed by the same gitignore parser — so a negation pattern there might also be skipped. Restructuring .gitignore to not need negation eliminates the ambiguity for every tool that reads it (databricks-cli, Docker, VSCode hover-ignored-decoration, etc.) rather than papering over it for just one.

Closes #24

This pull request and its description were written by Isaac.

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Test Evidence (verified on the live deployment 2026-05-06)

Captured from the user's deployed terminal at https://coding-agents-7405613340366915.15.azure.databricksapps.com:

$ ls -la ~/.codex/
-rw------- 1 app app  114 May  6 08:42 .env
-rw-r--r-- 1 app app    3 May  6 05:56 .personality_migration
-rw-r--r-- 1 app app 3678 May  6 05:53 AGENTS.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 app app  535 May  6 05:53 config.toml
drwxr-xr-x 2 app app 4096 May  6 05:56 memories
drwxr-xr-x 3 app app 4096 May  6 05:56 tmp

$ [ -f ~/.codex/databricks-models.json ] && echo OK || echo MISSING
MISSING

$ databricks workspace list /Workspace/Users/<owner>/apps/coding-agents/.codex/ -p daveok
Error: Path doesn't exist.

So the .codex/ directory never made it into the synced workspace. setup_codex.py ran (other files in ~/.codex/ are present from setup) but catalog_src.exists() was False on the synced machine, silently skipping the copy.

After this fix lands, redeploy and verify with [ -f ~/.codex/databricks-models.json ] && echo OK.

[dgokeeffe]

@datasciencemonkey — flagging for priority review. P0: Codex CLI is fully broken on every deploy until this lands. One-file change (.gitignore), no logic touched, easy to verify locally with git check-ignore. Test evidence in PR body.

[datasciencemonkey]

@dgokeeffe
Hey, is this based on whats on main? It seems to deploy cleanly?

and I'm able to work on codex

How are you deploying it?

[datasciencemonkey]

@dgokeeffe - Can you try deploying "manually" vs deploying via the CLI using as a "git_source". I think the former does everything correctly and you might have this situation going on with just the CLI. I haven't checked the CLI. Even in that case, it should just deploy straight from git. Not be using databricks sync? i.e. sync to workspace and then deploy

[datasciencemonkey]

btw, this is just a minor change (I also tested that it works post the change to the gitignore via git clone), but I wonder what you're doing thats making it do a databricks sync. Are you suggesting that this runs a databricks sync somewhere?

databricks apps create my-app
--json '{"git_repository": {"url": "https://github.com/org/repo", "provider": "gitHub"}}'

[mpkrass7]

Deploying via

databricks sync path_to_workspace
databricks apps deploy path_to_workspace

should be an approved pattern even if it's not the most common one

[mpkrass7]

Suggested change

	# Codex CLI generated/cached files. The bundled model catalog
	# (.codex/databricks-models.json) is tracked. Listed file-by-file rather
	# than `.codex/* + !.codex/databricks-models.json` because `databricks sync`
	# (and several other gitignore-honoring tools) doesn't respect the negation
	# pattern — that broke the deploy of databricks-models.json to the app
	# workspace, which Codex needs to start.

You don't need a giant comment in the codebase for the change

[mpkrass7]

LGTM, Suggest removing the giant comment in the .gitignore file since users don't need to care about the fix

[dgokeeffe]

@mpkrass7 — sorry, I missed the comment-trim suggestion before the merge button got hit (your approval and the merge happened within 3 minutes). Filed the trim as a follow-up in PR #28 — same one-line change you asked for, just on a fresh branch since this one's closed.