DEC-0014: Codex Hotfix Escalation Rule

Date: 2026-03-25 Status: Accepted Scope: Codex operational behavior, production incidents, branch promotion

Decision

When the human uses language such as HOTFIX, production hotfix, fix production, site is broken in production, or otherwise clearly identifies a production incident, Codex must treat the task as a production promotion path by default, not as routine development work.

Codex will:

• implement the fix immediately
• push the fix to main when the change is ready
• report only concrete status: fixed, pushed to main, or blocked by X

Codex will not pause to ask whether the human wants the fix applied if the human has already made the production intent explicit.

Rationale

The repo already distinguishes development from main, and it already allows deploy incidents to go directly to main when the human chooses that path. The failure mode was not lack of branch policy but lack of behavioral discipline: Codex treated an explicit production hotfix as if it were ordinary development work, asked unnecessary follow-up questions, and slowed incident response.

This decision closes that gap by making the escalation path explicit for Codex.

Operational Implications

• development remains the default branch for normal work.
• Explicit production incidents are not normal work.
• For an explicit production incident, Codex should prefer the smallest safe fix and promote it directly to main.
• If hooks fail because of unrelated files outside the hotfix scope, Codex should avoid editing those unrelated files and use the narrowest safe path to ship the isolated fix.

Follow-up

• Mirror this rule in AGENTS.md under Codex execution discipline so it is part of the primary operating contract, not only the decision log.