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The skill file stays in the publisher's repository.
Paste the copied command in a terminal. It installs this SKILL.md into that agent.
npx skills add amElnagdy/delegate-skills --skill codex-delegate -a cursor -y
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codex CLI (OpenAI Codex) installed and authenticated, Node 18+, and git. The orchestrating agent must be able to run shell commands and read files. Shell examples assume bash/zsh (macOS/Linux, or Git Bash/WSL on Windows).
metadata:
version: 0.5.0You are the orchestrator. This skill lets you hand a bounded coding task to a separate implementer — the OpenAI Codex CLI — then review what it produced and land it yourself. You write the brief and own the judgment; Codex does the typing in its own sandbox; you verify and commit.
Nothing here is specific to one orchestrating agent. The loop needs only the ability to run a shell command and read a file, so it works the same whether you are Claude Code, OpenCode with a selected model, or any comparable agent. (It is designed for and run on Claude Code; treat other orchestrators as designed-for, not yet proven.)
codex CLI is not installed or not authenticated (run codex login).review command).codex --version succeeds. If not, install (npm i -g @openai/codex) and codex login.codex is on PATH. Multiple installs are common (e.g. a current npm/nvm copy and
a stale Homebrew one). command -v codex shows the active one and codex --version its version —
an old binary predates flags this skill relies on (codex exec --json, -o, exec resume). The
relay also records the version it ran into result.json, so a stale binary is visible after the fact.--cd at) the target git repository.Run these five steps per task. Steps 1, 4, and 5 are your judgment; 2 and 3 are mechanical.
Codex sees only the text you send — no repo memory, no chat history, no shared context. Everything the task needs goes in the brief: the goal, the current state, what to change, what to leave untouched, the project's actual gate commands (discover them from the repo's CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md/Makefile — do not assume), and a report contract. Tell Codex it will not commit (you will). Keep one task per brief. Full guidance and a template: references/writing-the-brief.md.
This skill selects Codex as the implementer. Codex as the orchestrator is a separate role: background waiting requires codex-background and its configured MCP server. Installing codex-delegate does not automatically install or configure that support utility. See the codex-background setup guide.
For Codex orchestration of background work, install and configure the separate
codex-background support utility first. If its MCP tools or registry are missing, stop and
report the setup requirement; do not silently fall back to model-driven polling. Then invoke its
registered delegate_run MCP tool once in place of the shell example below.
Follow that skill for structured common arguments, unchanged provider flags and reattachment by
runId. Keep the request pending until completion, then continue this skill's review and landing
steps. Other orchestrators keep the shell workflow below.
Send the brief to Codex with the bundled helper. It wraps codex exec, captures the run, and writes a
structured result.json — so your only job is "run a command, read a file." (<skill-dir> below is
this skill's installed directory — the folder containing this SKILL.md, i.e. the directory you loaded
the skill from. Claude Code prints it as "Base directory for this skill" when the skill loads; on other
orchestrators use that same directory — if unsure where it landed, run
find ~ -name relay.mjs -path '*codex-delegate*' and substitute the directory above it.)
node "<skill-dir>/scripts/relay.mjs" --brief brief.txt --cd /path/to/repo
# read-only (review/diagnosis, no edits): add --read-only
# isolated review (skip ambient MCP/user config): add --ignore-user-config
# subagent defaults: add --subagent-model <name> --subagent-effort <level> (again on every resume)
# web search mode (disabled|cached|indexed|live): add --web-search live (again on every resume)
# network inside the sandbox (gh, curl, installs): add --network-access (on resume: --sandbox workspace-write --network-access)
# continue the exact Codex session: add --session <threadId> (from result.json; send only the delta brief)
# fallback when no thread id is available: add --resume-last
# hard time limit (watchdog): add --timeout 2h (default: off; implementation runs routinely need 1-2h)
# see all options: node .../relay.mjs --help
The helper defaults to a write-capable (workspace-write) sandbox and writes its artifacts to a temp
dir, so the repo under review stays clean. It never commits — see step 5. Mechanics, flags, and the
result.json shape: references/dispatch-and-poll.md.
Codex using codex-background keeps the original MCP request pending: no model-driven sleep,
status or log polling. Use delegate_wait only to reattach after an interrupted request.
The helper blocks until Codex finishes, so back it with whatever your orchestrator offers and resume when it returns:
run_in_background: true; you are notified on completion.… & in bash/zsh (including Git Bash/WSL), or your shell's equivalent (Start-Job
in PowerShell, start /b in cmd). The run is done when result.json exists with a status. (A
pre-run usage error — bad args or an empty brief — instead exits with code 2 and a stderr message and
writes no result file, so check the exit code too. A missing codex binary exits 127 but does write
a result.json with status codex_unavailable.)Do not trust progress trackers over reality: a run is finished when result.json is written and the
process has exited. Read the working tree, not a status line. The implementer's full report is
the finalMessage field in result.json (also printed in full on stdout between the report markers).
Codex's result.json includes its own summary and gate claims. Re-verify, don't accept:
touchedFiles in the result is your starting point.guard-skills) — this skill produces the work; those skills judge it.Full checklist: references/review-and-land.md.
Because Codex's sandbox cannot reliably write .git (it varies by version, OS, and path), the
orchestrator commits. Only after the gates pass and the diff holds:
--session <threadId> from the prior result.json
(use --resume-last only when no thread id is available), and review again.The relay doubles as a clean way to get an adversarial second opinion with no write risk: dispatch
--read-only with a brief that lists the agreed points, then each contested point with both
positions, and ask Codex to defend or concede each — deliverable in its final message, touching no
files. Any delegation skill whose implementer offers a read-only mode supports the same use, but
check how hard that mode's guarantee is first: Codex's sandbox enforces it, while Grok's is
best-effort and only flagged after the fact (readOnlyViolation) — for those implementers,
verify touchedFiles came back empty instead of assuming no edits.
Delegation is something the human opts into. Once they have ("run this queue", "proceed"), committing verified, gate-passing work is the agreed contract — that is the whole point. Two limits on that mandate: surface, don't absorb (report Codex's design decisions, defensible-but-unasked turns, and non-blocking nitpicks rather than silently keeping them) and stop for scope changes (if correct completion needs going beyond the brief, ask — don't expand the mandate yourself). The full treatment is in references/review-and-land.md.
The official openai-codex Claude Code plugin is excellent and complementary — codex-delegate
builds on the same codex CLI, it doesn't replace the plugin. They point in different directions:
codex:codex-rescue agent is a forwarder: it hands one task to Codex and returns
the output. It deliberately does not poll, review, or commit.codex-delegate is the orchestration loop in the other direction: you drive Codex to
implement across one task or a queue, and you review and land each result. That loop — brief →
dispatch → poll → review → commit, with the orchestrator owning the commit — is what the plugin
leaves to you, and what this skill encodes.If you have the plugin installed, its companion CLI is an optional alternative dispatch backend; the
bundled relay.mjs is the default because it adds no install of its own beyond the codex binary
(Node and git, which the relay also needs, are prerequisites for every skill here).
relay.mjs flags, the
result.json contract, backgrounding per orchestrator, and recovery when a run misbehaves.