Command reference ยท Codex CLI
/approve
Approves one retry after an automatic-review denial.
/approve approves a retry for an action that the automatic reviewer previously rejected. According to the doc, the command only has an effect when Auto Review is active. Auto Review replaces manual approval at the sandbox boundary with a separate reviewer agent that approves or rejects requests such as risky shell commands, network access, or write access outside allowed paths.
When you call /approve, a list of the most recently rejected actions opens โ Codex stores up to ten per task. You select one and approve it for exactly one retry.
The approval is tightly scoped: it applies only to exactly this action, not to similar future ones, and the new attempt still goes through Auto Review, which can reject it again.
โ WHEN TO USE IT?
Retry an incorrectly blocked action
The reviewer rejected a harmless lint command outside the allowed paths; you approve it via /approve for a retry.
Steer specifically after a rejection
Codex reports a rejection by Auto Review; via /approve you approve exactly this one action.
โ WHEN NOT TO?
Auto Review isn't active at all
According to the doc, the command only applies to interactive approvals with Auto Review active; if the approval policy is set to "never", there's nothing to check.
Better: Adjust the approval policy via /permissions or the configuration.
Wanting to permanently loosen the policy
According to the doc, the command only approves a single retry for exactly one action, not a category of future actions.
Better: Adjust the Auto Review policy in config.toml or set tighter path rules.
SOURCES
- Codex CLI docs: Slash Commands โ learn.chatgpt.com
MORE COMMANDS ยท Codex CLI