diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yaml b/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
index 06ff111..17f49f0 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
@@ -82,3 +82,15 @@ jobs:
           [ -z "${_WARNINGS}" ] || exit 1
 
       - run: echo "🍏 Job status ${{ job.status }}"
+
+      - name: Snap TUI
+        env:
+          TERM: xterm-256color
+        run: |
+          # Make sure the interactive TUI starts and keeps running (timeout exits 124) #
+          _RC=0
+          script -qec "timeout 30 codex" /dev/null >tui.log 2>&1 || _RC=$?
+          [ "${_RC}" -eq 124 ] || cat tui.log
+          [ "${_RC}" -eq 124 ] || exit 1
+
+      - run: echo "🍏 Job status ${{ job.status }}"
diff --git a/snap/local/etc/codex/config.toml b/snap/local/etc/codex/config.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a2bad0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/snap/local/etc/codex/config.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# Snap defaults, loaded from /etc/codex/config.toml.
+# This is the lowest precedence layer, so ~/snap/codex/current/config.toml overrides it.
+
+[features]
+# The shared background daemon only runs from an upstream packaged install
+# (codex-package.json layout) and self updates outside of snapd.
+# Without this the TUI exits with "this CLI has no complete local package".
+daemon_auto_start = false
diff --git a/snap/snapcraft.yaml b/snap/snapcraft.yaml
index 7650240..8347dbb 100644
--- a/snap/snapcraft.yaml
+++ b/snap/snapcraft.yaml
@@ -87,6 +87,15 @@ parts:
     after:
       - codex
 
+  # Snap wide defaults, read by codex as its lowest precedence system config #
+  defaults:
+    plugin: dump
+    source: snap/local
+
+layout:
+  /etc/codex:
+    bind: $SNAP/etc/codex
+
 apps:
   codex:
     command: bin/codex