Codex Hides AGENTS.md Reliability Gaps

Codex’s instruction system is powerful but fragile when treated as a guaranteed source of truth rather than bounded context.

• –The 32 KiB limit applies across discovered project instruction files, so later guidance may be clipped or omitted.
• –Table-of-contents-style AGENTS.md files are risky when critical rules live in referenced documents.
• –Context compaction preserves a compressed conversation state, but does not guarantee every referenced file will be reread.
• –Keep mandatory instructions short and early, and make agents verify critical docs before consequential changes.
• –Teams should monitor instruction size and test workflows across compaction boundaries.