# Overview
MCP refreshes were rebuilding active threads from fresh disk-backed
config only, which dropped thread-start session overlays such as
app-injected MCP servers. This keeps refreshes current with disk config
while preserving the thread-local config that only the active thread
knows about.
# Changes
- Rebuild refreshed config per active thread using that thread's current
`cwd`, rather than fanning out one app-server config to every thread.
- Preserve each thread's `SessionFlags` layer while replacing reloadable
config layers with freshly loaded config, then derive the MCP refresh
payload from the rebuilt result.
- Move MCP refresh orchestration into app-server so manual refreshes
fail loudly while background refreshes remain best-effort, and route
plugin-triggered refreshes through the same per-thread reload path.
- Add regression coverage for session overlays, fresh project config,
plugin-derived MCP config, current requirements, and strict vs
best-effort refresh behavior.
# Verification
- Passed focused Rust coverage for the thread-config rebuild behavior
and deferred MCP refresh flow, plus `cargo test -p codex-app-server
--lib`.
- Verified end to end in the Codex dev app against the locally built
CLI: registered an MCP via thread config, verified that it could be used
successfully before refresh, manually triggered MCP refresh, and
verified that it continued to be available afterward.
## Why
App-server had repeated hand-built JSON-RPC error objects for standard
error shapes. Using the shared helpers keeps the common
`invalid_request`, `invalid_params`, and `internal_error` construction
in one place and reduces the chance of new call sites drifting from the
common error payload shape.
## What changed
- Replaced manual standard JSON-RPC error object creation with
`internal_error(...)`, `invalid_request(...)`, and `invalid_params(...)`
across app-server request processors and runtime paths.
- Removed local duplicate helper definitions from search and review
request handling.
- Preserved existing structured `data` payloads by creating the shared
helper error first and then attaching the existing metadata.
- Left custom non-standard errors and raw error-code assertions intact.
## Validation
- `cargo test -p codex-app-server`
## Why
The app-server request path had grown around a large
`CodexMessageProcessor` plus separate API wrapper/helper modules. That
made the dependency graph hard to see and forced unrelated request
families to share broad processor state.
This PR makes the split mechanical and command-prefix oriented so
request families own only the dependencies they use.
## What changed
- Replaced `CodexMessageProcessor` with command-prefix request
processors under `app-server/src/request_processors/`.
- Removed the old config, device-key, external-agent-config, and fs API
wrapper files by moving their API handling into processors.
- Split apps, plugins, marketplace, catalog, account, MCP, command exec,
fs, git, feedback, thread, turn, thread goals, and Windows sandbox
handling into dedicated processors.
- Kept shared lifecycle, summary conversion, token usage replay, and
shared error mapping only where multiple processors use them; single-use
helpers were inlined into their owning processor.
- Removed the fallback processor path and moved processor tests to
`_tests` files.
## Validation
- `cargo test -p codex-app-server`
- `cargo check -p codex-app-server`
- `just fix -p codex-app-server`
