Codex-hosted browser startup fails with ENOENT mkdir '/.playwright-mcp'

i’m seeing a codex-hosted browser startup failure before any trivial smoke test can begin.

when using the codex-hosted browser tool, startup fails immediately with:

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, mkdir ‘/.playwright-mcp’

expected: a trivial smoke test on https:// example com should start successfully and write artifacts to repo-local browser directories.

actual: browser startup fails before the smoke test begins, so the browser lane is blocked.

minimal repro:

• fresh codex session in the repo
• trivial browser smoke test against https:// example com
• startup fails immediately with the error above

effective env: HOME=/Users/dmitrymatskevich XDG_CACHE_HOME= TMPDIR=/var/folders/ns/98nq_gpj0nxf9sknqrsqd1qw0000gn/T/ USER=dmitrymatskevich PWD=/Users/dmitrymatskevich/cursor/personal/health

why this looks codex-hosted, not upstream playwright-mcp:

• i compared codex-hosted launch vs direct fresh launch of @playwright/mcp@0.0.70
• direct fresh launch outside codex host works in both isolated mode and persistent mode when explicit writable dirs are provided
• in the inspected upstream package/source, i did not find a literal .playwright-mcp path

this makes the failure look more like a codex wrapper / env handoff issue than:

• a repo-local browser scaffold issue
• or an upstream @playwright/mcp package bug

is this a known codex-hosted browser integration bug, and is there a recommended workaround?