Debugging Mac AI Agent Failures: A Layered Checklist for Codex, Claude Code, OpenClaw, and Computer Use
Dev.to AI
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Generative AI
Most "the model refuses to act" failures on a Mac are not model-quality failures.\n\nThey are usually setup failures across one of five layers:\n\n1. Provider/model routing: the selected model is unavailable, blocked by provider policy, or not the runtime that owns the tool you are trying to use.\n2. Auth state: OpenRouter, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, or local gateway credentials are stale or attached to the wrong profile.\n3. Session isolation: one TUI/session is reused across unrelated project directories, so the agent answers from the wrong state.\n4.