Every Codex off-switch

Codex ships an opt-out for nearly every background behavior, but the keys live in a dozen different sections of config.toml. If you’ve ever typed codex disable into autocomplete and gotten a shopping list back, this is that list mapped to real keys.

Values

What you want off	Key	Value
Analytics	analytics.enabled	false
OpenTelemetry export	otel.exporter / otel.metrics_exporter / otel.trace_exporter	"none"
Prompt text in OTel logs	otel.log_user_prompt	false
Transcript saved to disk	history.persistence	"none"
Auto-compaction	model_auto_compact_token_limit	set a token number
Web search tool	web_search	"disabled"
WebSocket transport	model_providers.<id>.supports_websockets	false
Memories	features.memories	false
Reusing existing memories	memories.use_memories	false
Writing new memories	memories.generate_memories	false
Fast-mode tier picker	features.fast_mode	false
A single skill	[[skills.config]] → enabled	false
Update check on startup	check_for_update_on_startup	false
TUI animations	tui.animations	false
TUI notifications	tui.notifications	false
Onboarding tooltips	tui.show_tooltips	false
/feedback command	feedback.enabled	false
Paste-burst detection	disable_paste_burst	true
Unstable-features warning	suppress_unstable_features_warning	true

# root-level switches
analytics.enabled = false
web_search = "disabled"
check_for_update_on_startup = false
disable_paste_burst = true

[otel]
exporter = "none"
metrics_exporter = "none"
trace_exporter = "none"

[history]
persistence = "none"

[features]
memories = false
fast_mode = false

[[skills.config]]
path = "~/.codex/skills/example"
enabled = false

When to change it

Corp or regulated machine where security wants zero telemetry leaving the box: analytics.enabled = false plus all three otel.* exporters set to "none".

Sensitive codebase and you don’t want the session written to history.jsonl: history.persistence = "none".

Offline or air-gapped: web_search = "disabled" and check_for_update_on_startup = false so Codex stops reaching out.

Stuck in the websocket reconnect loop from #13041: set supports_websockets = false on your provider to force the HTTPS transport.

Gotchas

analytics.enabled = false doesn’t zero out metrics on its own. The metrics exporter defaults to statsig (config reference), so set otel.metrics_exporter = "none" too if you want nothing shipping.

web_search defaults to "cached", not off. "disabled" is the only value that removes the tool; the old features.web_search* and tools.web_search boolean forms still parse but are renamed (config reference).

The websocket switch is not a documented fix for #13041. That issue (open, 74 comments) is the server closing the socket with a 1008 Policy frame, not a config bug. Flipping supports_websockets = false just forces the HTTPS fallback people already land on, which stops the reconnect churn. No maintainer has blessed it as the fix.

features.memories is off by default, so that row is belt-and-suspenders unless you turned memories on. The two granular knobs only matter once it’s enabled.

A few keys got renamed and the old spellings may still parse: background_terminal_timeout is now background_terminal_max_timeout, experimental_use_unified_exec_tool is now features.unified_exec, and memories.no_memories_if_mcp_or_web_search is now memories.disable_on_external_context (config reference).

Related settings

• /config/model_reasoning_effort/ — the other big lever on cost and speed. Turning things off trims noise; effort is where you trade thinking time for quality.