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Package archive builder deletes existing file with unsupported suffix under --force

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@akhil9tiet is already working on this.

Since Oct 28, 2026.

Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
82/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
python, rust
Domain
cli, testing

Research direction

Read scripts/codex_package/archive.py and trace write_archive() from archive format validation through file deletion; scripts/codex_package/cli.py shows the public caller. Add a regression case in scripts/codex_package/test_archive.py using an existing file with an unsupported suffix and force=True; done means the command rejects the suffix and preserves the file.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug
Summary

scripts/codex_package/archive.py::write_archive() deletes an existing --archive-output file when --force is supplied before validating the archive filename suffix. If the suffix is unsupported, the command fails with RuntimeError, but the pre-existing file has already been removed.

This is observable through the public package builder: scripts/codex_package/cli.py::archive_package() resolves each --archive-output and calls write_archive(..., force=args.force). The CLI accepts any path at argument parsing time.

Reproduction (isolated, no build required)

Using write_archive with an empty package directory and a pre-existing non-archive file:

from pathlib import Path
from tempfile import TemporaryDirectory
from codex_package.archive import write_archive

with TemporaryDirectory() as tmp:
    root = Path(tmp)
    package = root / "package"
    package.mkdir()
    output = root / "important.txt"
    output.write_text("keep this data")
    try:
        write_archive(package, output, force=True)
    except RuntimeError as exc:
        print(exc)  # Unsupported archive suffix ...
    assert output.read_text() == "keep this data"  # FAILS: FileNotFoundError

Set CODEX_REPO_ROOT to the repository root before importing the package, as required by codex_package.targets.

Expected

Reject unsupported archive suffixes without changing the existing output file.

Actual

write_archive runs archive_path.unlink() before archive_format_for_path(archive_path), so the original file is deleted even though no archive is written.

Evidence / verification

Reviewed scripts/codex_package/archive.py, scripts/codex_package/cli.py, scripts/codex_package/test_archive.py, and scripts/codex_package/test_cli.py at commit e742db9f7ba98e63e502b310857d49d047888518; rechecked the same order on the current default branch. An isolated local Python reproduction of the exact initial write_archive control flow confirmed the file disappears after the unsupported-suffix exception. Existing tests cover zstd resolution and version parsing, but not this failure case.

Suggested fix

Validate archive_format_for_path(archive_path) before any unlink/write side effects, and add a regression test asserting that a pre-existing file with an unsupported suffix is preserved when force=True.

No pull request has been submitted.

Dominant language
Rust
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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