/codex:transfer is broken when CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is set — Claude transcript root hardcoded to ~/.claude/projects

[MatthewMaker]

Description

/codex:transfer cannot transfer a session when Claude Code's config dir is not ~/.claude. Claude Code supports relocating it via the CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR env var (mine is ~/.claude-work), and transcripts then live under $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/projects/<project>/<session>.jsonl. The plugin hardcodes the default root:

plugins/codex/scripts/lib/claude-session-transfer.mjs:8

const CLAUDE_PROJECTS_DIR = path.join(os.homedir(), ".claude", "projects");

Two separate failures follow.

1. Plugin-side path validation. resolveClaudeSessionPath() rejects any transcript outside ~/.claude/projects. Worse, the realpathSync of the source and of CLAUDE_PROJECTS_DIR share one try/catch, so when the default root doesn't exist the user gets a wrong diagnosis pointing at a file that does exist:

Claude session file not found: ~/.claude-work/projects/-Users-...-my-repo/<uuid>.jsonl

2. Codex-side detection. Even with the path accepted, codex-cli 0.153.0 only detects Claude transcripts under ~/.claude/projects, so importedThreadIdForSource() finds no ledger record and the import fails with:

Codex reported that the Claude import completed, but did not record an imported thread. Check the Codex app-server logs for the underlying import error.

strings on the codex binary shows no CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR occurrence at all (external-agent-migration/src/source_cla.rs), so the Rust side appears to assume the default root too. That part may need a fix in openai/codex rather than here, but the plugin can work around it.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Run Claude Code with CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work (any non-default value; the default ~/.claude may also exist and be non-empty).
2. In a session, run /codex:transfer.
3. Failure 1 (path validation) fires. Patch CLAUDE_PROJECTS_DIR to the real root and rerun — failure 2 (ledger) fires.
4. Copy the same transcript to ~/.claude/projects/<same-project-dir>/ and pass it via --source: the transfer succeeds.

Expected behavior

/codex:transfer works when the transcript lives under $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/projects/, and the error message for a genuinely missing file is distinguishable from a root-not-allowed one.

Actual behavior

Transfer is impossible without hand-copying the transcript into ~/.claude/projects/.

Suggested fix

In claude-session-transfer.mjs, resolve the accepted roots from CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR (falling back to ~/.claude) instead of a single constant, and split the two realpathSync calls so a missing default root can't be reported as a missing source file.

Until the Codex CLI understands the relocated root, the plugin can stage a copy of the transcript into ~/.claude/projects/<project-dir>/ and hand Codex that path. Locally patching those two things makes /codex:transfer succeed:

Transferred the Claude session into a Codex thread with visible turn history.
Codex session ID: 01a0691d-...

Happy to open a PR for the plugin-side change if that shape looks right.

Notes

Not a duplicate of the existing "did not record an imported thread" reports — those are Windows path/hash issues with the transcript already under ~/.claude/projects. Here the root itself is different, and the same failure reproduces on macOS.

Environment

• OS: macOS 15 (Darwin 24.6.0), Apple Silicon
• Node.js: v24
• Shell: zsh
• Plugin version: 1.0.6 (plugins/cache/openai-codex/codex/1.0.6)
• codex-cli: 0.153.0 (Homebrew)
• CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work