TL;DRDefaults are the whole game at the start: run your first session inside a dedicated directory with the stock sandbox and approval tier, not full auto on day one. This checklist compresses the prerequisites scattered across community tutorials into six checks plus one prompt template.
Sources SOURCES
Distilled from public community discussions. This page only breaks them down and verifies — it never reposts the original; opinions belong to their authors.
Facts FACTS
Check these claims against the listed sources. For allowance mechanics, first-party account displays outrank community summaries.
- Codex ships with a sandbox (implemented with Seatbelt on macOS) and an approval policy; the default configuration is the safe starting tier.
--dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandboxswitches off the sandbox and approval layers at the same time — community security discussions agree it is the lowest-safety option, and beginners should not use it.- AGENTS.md is an optional project-level instruction file; you do not need to pre-write anything in it to get started.
Concepts CONCEPTS
Not everything said in a community thread is a fact — each concept carries its nature label. Read the label first.
The shared advice across beginner tutorials: keep SSH keys, .env files, and anything else sensitive out of the directory where you first run Codex. The sandbox is a protection layer; directory hygiene is the habit one layer further out.
'Confirm every action' looks tedious, but its real job is teaching you, during your first days, to judge which actions are dangerous — which is exactly the evidence you will use later when tuning the approval level.
Step-by-step SOP STEP BY STEP
- 01Confirm subscription and quota
After logging in, run
/statusor open the usage page and confirm your current plan plus both window headrooms are visible. - 02Pick a clean directory
Create a dedicated folder as your workspace — no keys, no files carrying private data.
- 03Keep the default sandbox
No bypass configuration of any kind: default sandbox plus default approvals. Curious what the approval tiers actually differ on? Read up on how the sandbox and approval layers split before you touch anything.
- 04Open with the template
Make your first sentence structural: 'This is a ... project. First inspect the directory structure, then do ..., and tell me which files you changed when done.'
- 05Read every approval popup
Read each request before confirming — focus on whether the file paths it wants to touch actually relate to the task at hand.
- 06Close with a note
Write down which kinds of operations made you hesitate today. That list is your personal basis for adjusting the approval tier later.
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