Codex restricted turns

Which tool policies push a Codex turn onto the restricted native surface. Part of the Codex harness reference; Where each section moved lists every section.

Restricted turns

The Codex harness evaluates the effective tool policy for every turn. It marks the turn policy-restricted when any explicit policy would otherwise leave a Codex-native capability outside the OpenClaw policy boundary.

Restriction sources include global, provider, agent, group, sender, sandbox, subagent, inherited, scheduled/runtime, and per-run tool policies. A finite allowlist always restricts the native surface. A deny list restricts it when an expanded entry is unknown or absent from the audited safe-deny set; this includes wildcards and tool groups containing any unsafe entry. disableTools becomes an empty per-run allowlist and therefore also restricts the native surface. Default tool-profile narrowing is not an explicit restriction and does not activate this mode.

The current audited safe-deny names are:

automations, canvas, dashboard, gateway, heartbeat_respond, image_generate,memory_get, memory_search, message, music_generate, show_widget, skill_workshop,tts, video_generate, web_fetch, x_search

A policy containing only those denies stays on the normal Codex native surface; the harness applies the named OpenClaw denial directly. Any other deny fails closed into the restricted surface. For example, tools.deny: ["nodes"] restricts the native surface because nodes is not in the audited set.

Policy-restricted turns have no Codex environment selection or native Code Mode. OpenClaw disables inherited and configured MCP servers, attests that they remain disabled, disables native hook relays, and applies the effective policy to its dynamic tools. A temporary restriction on an existing session uses a transient Codex thread and preserves the unrestricted binding for later resume.

Ring zero is not a configurable policy profile. It is the host-scoped system agent path used by OpenClaw setup and repair flows. The host must activate the system-agent authority and provide the exact single-tool allowlist ["openclaw"]. Ring zero applies the restricted tool surface plus host-authored base instructions and zero project-document budget. It also suppresses OpenClaw's AGENTS.md developer-instruction carrier, so ambient workspace instructions cannot enter the setup/repair turn.

Message-only source replies also use the restricted tool surface. Lightweight bootstrap turns and tool-disabled internal turns additionally set the project- document budget to zero. These modes are separate inputs even when their final thread configuration overlaps.