---
title: 'In the News: September 1, 2026'
description: "Simon Willison found a full LibreOffice install bundled into Codex's runtime cache, and a dated bug report shows how that dependency fails on some Macs."
canonical_url: 'https://darkfactory.dev/news/2026-09-01-evening'
markdown_url: 'https://darkfactory.dev/news/2026-09-01-evening.md'
collection: news
date_published: '2026-09-01T18:48:00-04:00'
date_modified: '2026-09-01T18:48:00-04:00'
---

# In the News: September 1, 2026


Codex's local runtime cache includes a full LibreOffice build whose Homebrew-linked libraries fail on some Macs.

## 1. Codex's runtime cache bundles LibreOffice with Homebrew library dependencies

**[Codex bundles LibreOffice](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/1/codex-libreoffice/)** · Simon Willison · Simon Willison's Weblog, September 1, 2026

Willison was clearing disk space with OmniDiskSweeper when he found 1.7GB in `~/.cache/codex-runtimes/codex-primary-runtime`, the local runtime cache for the OpenAI Codex desktop app (since rebranded to ChatGPT). Inside: a full Python installation, a full Node.js installation, and native binaries for Poppler, git, and a 429.7MB headless build of LibreOffice. A "documents" skill folder in the same cache tells Codex how to find and use them.

The bundling has a documented failure mode. A June 6 bug report on the Codex GitHub repository (issue #26816) describes that same bundled LibreOffice binary crashing on launch on a Mac without Homebrew installed: the `soffice` binary is dynamically linked against `/opt/homebrew` library paths that do not exist outside a Homebrew install, so it fails with a "Library not loaded" error. DOCX generation still works, the reporter noted, but Codex's document visual-rendering and QA step fails until soffice can start, and reinstalling Codex did not fix it.

**Why it matters:** A coding agent's runtime includes every binary the harness carries to support its features. Each one adds dependencies, disk cost, and machine-specific failure modes. Anyone building or auditing an agent harness should inspect its cache directory alongside the product's stated capabilities.