A user inspecting their ~/.cache/ directory with OmniDiskSweeper discovered roughly 1.7 GB of files belonging to the OpenAI Codex desktop app — rebranded since to simply ChatGPT. The runtime appears in a folder named codex-primary-runtime and includes several full installations and native binaries.
What was found
- A full Python installation is present inside the codex-primary-runtime folder.
- A full Node.js installation is also included.
- Native binaries are bundled as well, including Poppler (PDF tools), git, and the LibreOffice open-source office suite.
- The path ~/.cache/codex-runtimes/codex-primary-runtime/plugins/openai-primary-runtime/plugins/documents contains "skills" that indicate how Codex locates and uses those binaries.
Why it matters
Storing these components in the user's cache means the desktop app ships with local copies of multiple dependencies and runtimes. That can simplify dependency management and enable some offline capabilities, but it also increases disk usage and raises questions about what software is being installed into a user’s environment.
Notes
This information comes from the single user’s inspection with OmniDiskSweeper; the report does not provide timestamps, installation conditions, or version details for the bundled components.
