diff --git a/plugins/codex/scripts/lib/job-control.mjs b/plugins/codex/scripts/lib/job-control.mjs
index ad152c157..f213e01be 100644
--- a/plugins/codex/scripts/lib/job-control.mjs
+++ b/plugins/codex/scripts/lib/job-control.mjs
@@ -256,6 +256,15 @@ export function buildSingleJobSnapshot(cwd, reference, options = {}) {
 export function resolveResultJob(cwd, reference) {
   const workspaceRoot = resolveWorkspaceRoot(cwd);
   const jobs = sortJobsNewestFirst(reference ? listJobs(workspaceRoot) : filterJobsForCurrentSession(listJobs(workspaceRoot)));
+
+  if (reference) {
+    const selected = matchJobReference(jobs, reference);
+    if (selected.status === "queued" || selected.status === "running") {
+      throw new Error(`Job ${selected.id} is still ${selected.status}. Check /codex:status and try again once it finishes.`);
+    }
+    return { workspaceRoot, job: selected };
+  }
+
   const selected = matchJobReference(
     jobs,
     reference,
@@ -271,10 +280,6 @@ export function resolveResultJob(cwd, reference) {
     throw new Error(`Job ${active.id} is still ${active.status}. Check /codex:status and try again once it finishes.`);
   }
 
-  if (reference) {
-    throw new Error(`No finished job found for "${reference}". Run /codex:status to inspect active jobs.`);
-  }
-
   throw new Error("No finished Codex jobs found for this repository yet.");
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/runtime.test.mjs b/tests/runtime.test.mjs
index 8f276835b..7b4d02ae5 100644
--- a/tests/runtime.test.mjs
+++ b/tests/runtime.test.mjs
@@ -1415,6 +1415,43 @@ test("result returns the stored output for the latest finished job by default",
   );
 });
 
+test("result reports the status of an explicitly referenced active job", () => {
+  const workspace = makeTempDir();
+  const stateDir = resolveStateDir(workspace);
+  fs.mkdirSync(stateDir, { recursive: true });
+
+  fs.writeFileSync(
+    path.join(stateDir, "state.json"),
+    `${JSON.stringify(
+      {
+        version: 1,
+        config: { stopReviewGate: false },
+        jobs: [
+          {
+            id: "task-live",
+            status: "running",
+            title: "Codex Task",
+            jobClass: "task",
+            createdAt: "2026-03-18T15:00:00.000Z",
+            updatedAt: "2026-03-18T15:01:00.000Z"
+          }
+        ]
+      },
+      null,
+      2
+    )}\n`,
+    "utf8"
+  );
+
+  const result = run("node", [SCRIPT, "result", "task-live"], {
+    cwd: workspace
+  });
+
+  assert.notEqual(result.status, 0);
+  assert.match(result.stderr, /Job task-live is still running/i);
+  assert.doesNotMatch(result.stderr, /No job found/i);
+});
+
 test("result without a job id prefers the latest finished job from the current Claude session", () => {
   const workspace = makeTempDir();
   const stateDir = resolveStateDir(workspace);