codex-orchestrator

Codex Orchestrator

Spawn specialized Codex CLI subagents for focused development tasks. Each profile injects a custom AGENTS.md persona that shapes the agent's behavior, focus areas, and output format.

Architecture

Claude Code (orchestrator)
    ↓ invokes skill
codex-orchestrator scripts
    ↓ spawns via Bash
Codex CLI with AGENTS.md
    ↓ executes
Specialized subagent task

Prerequisites

Verify Codex CLI is installed and configured:

~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-status.sh

Required:

• Codex CLI: npm install -g @openai/codex
• API Key: export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

Auto-Update

The skill automatically checks for Codex CLI updates on each invocation and updates if needed. This prevents issues caused by outdated CLI versions.

To manually check/update:

# Check version only
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-version-check.sh

# Check and auto-update if needed
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-version-check.sh --auto-update

Available Profiles

| Profile | Purpose | Use When | |---------|---------|----------| | reviewer | Code quality, bugs, performance | Pre-commit review, PR assessment | | debugger | Root cause analysis, fixes | Investigating bugs, tracing issues | | architect | System design, component boundaries | Planning changes, evaluating architecture | | security | OWASP, vulnerabilities, secrets | Security audits, compliance checks | | refactor | Code cleanup, modernization | Reducing tech debt, improving structure | | docs | API docs, READMEs, comments | Documentation tasks | | planner | ExecPlan design documents | Multi-hour tasks, complex features, significant refactors | | syseng | Infrastructure, DevOps, CI/CD, monitoring | Deployment, containers, observability, production ops | | builder | Greenfield implementation, new features | Creating new code from specs, incremental feature development | | researcher | Read-only Q&A, codebase analysis | Questions, analysis, comparisons (no file changes) | | adjudicator | Read-only comparative evidence weighing | Ambiguous hypotheses, rival interpretations, corpus comparisons, sign-value adjudication | | chat | Open-ended conversation | General questions, brainstorming, discussion (read-only, ephemeral) | | goal | Goal specification for /goal runs | Drafting structured objectives for autonomous multi-hour Codex sessions |

Quick Execution

Execute a one-shot task with a specific profile:

~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh <profile> "<prompt>"

Examples:

# Code review
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh reviewer "Review src/auth.ts for security issues"

# Debug investigation
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh debugger "Debug the login timeout on slow networks"

# Architecture design
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh architect "Design a caching layer for the API"

# Security audit
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh security "Audit the payment module for vulnerabilities"

# Write profiles auto-approve by default (uses -a never + --sandbox workspace-write)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh reviewer "Fix all lint errors"

# Create execution plan for complex feature
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh planner "Create an ExecPlan for adding WebSocket support"

# Build new feature from spec
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh builder "Implement user authentication with JWT"

# Continue from previous builder session
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh builder "continue"

# Open-ended conversation (read-only, ephemeral, gpt-5.4 via subscription)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh chat "What are the tradeoffs of event sourcing vs CRUD?"

# Conversation via API billing (gpt-5.5, bypasses Codex subscription)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh chat "Explain quantum error correction" --api --model gpt-5.5

# Multi-turn API chat with session file
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh chat "What is the tallest mountain?" --api --session /tmp/chat.json
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh chat "And the deepest ocean?" --api --session /tmp/chat.json

# Streaming API response
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh chat "Tell me about CQRS" --api --model gpt-5.5 --stream

# Ask a question about the codebase (read-only, no file changes)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh researcher "Explain the authentication flow in this project"

# Weigh rival hypotheses or ambiguous evidence (read-only, high reasoning)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh adjudicator "With Linear B and Linear A inscriptions side-by-side, weigh candidate values for the missing sound and rank the hypotheses."

# Research with Exa web search (injects Exa guide into AGENTS.md)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh researcher "What are the latest React Server Component patterns?" --web-search

# Research with native Codex web search (model-level tool, works in all sandboxes)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh researcher "What are the latest React patterns?" --search

# Review a screenshot (vision input)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh reviewer "Review this mockup for UX issues" --image screenshot.png

# Resume previous builder session
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh builder "continue" --resume

# JSONL output for structured capture
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh researcher "What is 2+2?" --json | head -5

Session Management

For more control, use the Python session manager:

# List available profiles
python3 ~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-session.py list

# Start non-interactive session
python3 ~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-session.py start debugger "Trace the null pointer in UserService"

# Start interactive session
python3 ~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-session.py interactive architect

# Show profile details
python3 ~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-session.py info security

Profile Selection Guide

Review Tasks

• reviewer for general code quality and bugs
• security for vulnerability-focused review
• refactor for cleanup opportunities

Investigation Tasks

• debugger for bug investigation
• architect for understanding system behavior
• researcher for questions and analysis (read-only, no changes)
• adjudicator for weighing rival hypotheses, ambiguous evidence, and corpus-level comparisons (read-only, high reasoning)
• chat for open-ended conversation and brainstorming (read-only, ephemeral)

Creation Tasks

• architect for design decisions
• builder for new feature implementation
• docs for documentation
• refactor for implementation improvements
• planner for multi-hour implementation plans
• goal for autonomous /goal objective specifications

Chaining Patterns

Review → Debug → Fix

# 1. Identify issues
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh reviewer "Review src/api/ for bugs"

# 2. Investigate specific bug
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh debugger "Debug the race condition found in cache.ts"

Planner → Architect → Builder

# 1. Create comprehensive ExecPlan
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh planner "Create ExecPlan for new authentication system"

# 2. Validate architecture
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scripts/codex-exec.sh architect "Review the auth system ExecPlan for design issues"

# 3. Build (plan guides implementation)
~/.claude/skills/codex-orchestrator/scrip