# Codex Appshots is a screenshot plus whatever text the app exposes

Canonical: https://www.lazyscreenshots.com/blog/codex-appshots-contract-and-failures/
Author: Ali Abouelatta (https://www.lazyscreenshots.com/authors/ali-abouelatta/)
Published: 2026-09-19
Updated: 2026-09-19
Research type: Sourced buying guide
Method: Official OpenAI documentation and release notes first, followed by two public openai/codex GitHub issues. No Reddit sentiment, prevalence estimate, or firsthand product test is used.

Codex Appshots add a second payload to an ordinary screenshot: available app text.

It changes what Codex can infer from a screen, but only within a narrow contract. The official documentation describes the contract. Two public GitHub reports show what partial failures look like. Neither source supplies a product-wide reliability rate.

## Contract in one table

OpenAI’s [Appshots documentation](https://developers.openai.com/ja-JP/docs/appshots) gives us this working model:

| Layer | Documented behavior | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Image | Captures the visible frontmost app window | It is not a full visual capture of everything behind or below the window. |
| Text | Can include text the source app makes available, including text outside the visible scroll area | “Available” depends on the source app and its accessibility surface. |
| Permissions | Screen Recording is used for the image; Accessibility is used for available text | Permission is necessary for the payload, not proof that the payload will complete. |
| Destination | Defaults to a new chat, but a chat used within

[Codex Appshots is a screenshot plus whatever text the app exposes](<https://www.lazyscreenshots.com/blog/codex-appshots-contract-and-failures/>)

Source observed: 2026-09-19T07:28:01.599Z. Last checked: 2026-11-12T02:27:22.774+00:00.

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