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allow-all mode resets after long inactive period #4696

Description

@NickEricson

Describe the bug

After a long period of no activity (ie 8 hours) the allow-all permissions are dropped. This is not a resumed session - just wake the machine back up and continue using the same cli.

Diagnosis: the session temporarily lost  --yolo / allow-all  mode.

• At 2026-09-02 14:16:59Z, permissions changed from  allow-all  to  manual .
• Between 14:23:20Z and 14:38:05Z, the CLI generated 137 managed approval requests: 131 reads and 6 shell commands. All were approved.
• At 14:38:26Z, permissions changed back to  allow-all ; approval requests then stopped.
• This was not specific to unsafe MCP or subagent tools—the prompts were mostly ordinary file reads.

The reset occurred during a long inactive/resume gap, with no user command recorded. The log does not include process arguments, so it cannot distinguish between resuming the session without  --yolo  and a Copilot CLI 1.0.83-1 resume bug that dropped the permission mode. If the resumed invocation definitely included  --yolo , this is CLI behavior worth reporting.

The recurring  hook-telemetry.ps1  five-second timeout is a separate repository-hook issue and did not cause the approval prompts. Use  /permissions  after resuming to confirm the effective mode;  /allow-all  restores it immediately.

Stats:
• Version:  1.0.83-1 
• Windows environment
• Started/resumed with  --yolo 
• Permission mode unexpectedly changed from  allow-all  to  manual 
• It generated 137 approval prompts until  /allow-all  restored the mode
• Relevant timestamps:  2026-09-02 14:16:59Z  through  14:38:26Z 
• Session ID:  592d3c81-8389-480e-90c6-dfb9e296cb6c

Affected version

GitHub Copilot CLI 1.0.83-1

Steps to reproduce the behavior

  1. Start in --yolo
  2. Do some things
  3. Stop doing them and wait several hours (machine hibernates)
  4. Wake up machine and ask existing CLI (still open) to do something

Expected behavior

yolo mode should be preserved.

Additional context

No response

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    area:permissionsTool approval, security boundaries, sandbox mode, and directory restrictionsarea:sessionsSession management, resume, history, session picker, and session state

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