We're switching to using a static encoding of the host path in
`PathUri`. We may need a type like this again but we can add it when
it's more compelling.
Stacked on #27454.
## Why
`ext/skills` currently depends on `codex-core` for two host concerns:
reading the concrete `Config` type and borrowing core-owned
model-context fragment types. That coupling prevents the extension from
being assembled independently above core and leaves context that belongs
to the skills feature owned by core.
This stacked PR introduces the host boundary needed for the broader
extension migration while intentionally preserving existing skills
behavior. It is stacked on #27404.
## What changed
- Adds a small public `SkillsExtensionConfig` view and makes skills
installation generic over the host config type.
- Requires the host to map its config into that view; app-server
supplies the current `Config` values.
- Moves the available-skills and selected-skill context fragment
implementations into `ext/skills`, preserving their roles, markers, and
rendered bytes.
- Removes the direct `codex-core` dependency from
`codex-skills-extension`.
- Keeps local discovery, invocation, side effects, and the
`codex-core-skills` compatibility types unchanged for later staged PRs.
## Behavior
This adds no capability and is intended to have no user-visible or
model-visible behavior change. The install API and ownership boundary
change internally; emitted skills context remains byte-for-byte
compatible.
## Validation
- Updates the skills extension integration coverage to use a host-owned
test config.
- Asserts the complete rendered catalog and selected-skill fragments,
including their roles and markers.
- `just bazel-lock-check`
- Rust tests and Clippy were not run locally per request; CI will run
them.
## Why
Hosted skills introduced by #27388 use opaque `skill://` resource
identifiers, but the skills catalog rendered every locator as a `file`
and told the model that every skill body lived on disk. That can send
the model toward filesystem tools for a resource that must instead be
read through its owning authority.
The catalog should describe how each source is accessed without changing
the underlying discovery or invocation behavior.
## What changed
- Render host skills as `file`, executor-owned skills as `environment
resource`, orchestrator-owned skills as `orchestrator resource`, and
custom-provider skills as `custom resource`.
- Update the shared no-alias guidance to describe source locators rather
than assuming every skill is stored on the host filesystem.
- Direct orchestrator resources through `skills.list` and `skills.read`,
and explicitly tell the model not to treat `skill://` identifiers as
filesystem paths.
- Preserve the existing filesystem and alias behavior for local skills.
## Scope
This PR changes only model-visible catalog rendering and guidance. It
does not change skill discovery, selection, prompt injection, provider
routing, catalog caching or refresh behavior, resource validation, or
the `skills.*` tool contract.
## Verification
- Extended skills-extension coverage for host-file and executor-resource
labels.
- Extended the no-executor app-server flow to assert
orchestrator-resource wording and non-filesystem guidance.
## Summary
- cache the first remote skill catalog outcome per thread, including
failures
- preserve discovery errors as catalog warnings
- update the existing cache regression test to verify failed discovery
is attempted once
## Why
A failed or hanging `codex_apps` `resources/list` call could run once
while building initial context and immediately again while contributing
first-turn input. With the discovery timeout, an ordinary Apps turn
could wait up to 20 seconds before inference and retry again on later
turns even when no remote skill was mentioned.
Caching a warning-only empty catalog preserves graceful degradation
while preventing repeated synchronous discovery attempts.
## Testing
- `just fmt`
- Tests and Clippy not run per request; CI will validate the change.
## Why
#27198 made the extension-owned `codex_apps` MCP connection the hosted
plugin runtime, but its `mcp/skill` resources still bypassed the skills
extension. App-server could list and read those resources through
generic MCP APIs, but a thread with no selected environment did not
expose them in the model's skills catalog or load their `SKILL.md`
through `$skill`.
Hosted skills should stay remote while using the same typed catalog,
source authority, deduplication, bounded contextual catalog, and
selected-skill prompt injection as host and executor skills. They should
not be downloaded or exposed as ambient filesystem paths.
## What changed
- Add a session-scoped `McpResourceClient` over the replaceable MCP
connection manager so resource list/read calls follow startup and
refresh replacements.
- Add a `BackendSkillProvider` that pages `codex_apps` resources,
accepts bounded and validated `mcp/skill` entries, and reads a selected
skill's `SKILL.md` through the same MCP connection.
- Register the remote provider in app-server and include it in the
skills catalog even when a thread has no selected capability roots or
executor.
- Contribute hosted skill metadata through the bounded
`AvailableSkillsInstructions` developer-context path, exclude remote
entries from per-turn catalog injection, and classify `<skills>`
messages as contextual developer content so rollback can trim and
rebuild them correctly.
## Testing
- Extend the app-server MCP resource integration test with
`environments: []` to exercise two-page discovery, filter a
non-`mcp/skill` resource, verify the escaped developer catalog entry and
user-role `<skill>` fragment containing the fetched `SKILL.md`, and
preserve generic MCP resource reads.
- Add core event-mapping coverage that classifies `<skills>` developer
messages as contextual history.
## Why
CCA is moving toward a split runtime where the orchestrator may not have
a filesystem, while executors can expose preinstalled plugins and
skills. A thread therefore needs to select capabilities without asking
app-server or core to interpret executor-owned paths through the
orchestrator's filesystem.
The longer-term model is broader than executor skills:
- A plugin is a bundle of skills, MCP servers, connectors/apps, and
hooks.
- A plugin root can be local, executor-owned, or hosted by a backend.
- Components inside one plugin can use different access and execution
mechanisms. A skill may be read from a filesystem or through backend
tools; an HTTP MCP server can run without an executor; a stdio MCP
server or hook needs an execution environment.
- Core should carry generic extension initialization data. The extension
that owns a component should discover it, expose it to the model, and
invoke it through the appropriate runtime.
This PR establishes that architecture through one complete vertical:
selecting a root on an executor, discovering the skills beneath it,
exposing those skills to the model, and reading an explicitly invoked
`SKILL.md` through the same executor.
## Contract
`thread/start` gains an experimental `selectedCapabilityRoots` field:
```json
{
"selectedCapabilityRoots": [
{
"id": "deploy-plugin@1",
"location": {
"type": "environment",
"environmentId": "workspace",
"path": "/opt/codex/plugins/deploy"
}
}
]
}
```
The root is intentionally not classified as a "plugin" or "skill" in the
API. It can point at a standalone skill, a directory containing several
skills, or a plugin containing skills and other components. This PR only
teaches the skills extension how to consume it; later extensions can
resolve MCP, connector, and hook components from the same selection.
The platform-supplied `id` is stable selection identity. The location
says which runtime owns the root and gives that runtime an opaque path.
App-server does not inspect or canonicalize the path.
## What changed
### Generic thread extension initialization
App-server converts selected roots into `ExtensionDataInit`. Core
carries that generic initialization value until the final thread ID is
known, then creates thread-scoped `ExtensionData` before lifecycle
contributors run.
This keeps `Session` and core independent of the capability-selection
contract. The initialization value is consumed during construction; it
is not retained as another long-lived `Session` field.
### Executor-backed skills
The skills extension now owns an `ExecutorSkillProvider` that:
- resolves the selected environment through `EnvironmentManager`
- discovers, canonicalizes, and reads skills through that environment's
`ExecutorFileSystem`
- contributes the bounded selected-skill catalog as stable developer
context
- reads an explicitly invoked skill body through the authority that
listed it
- warns when an environment or root is unavailable
- never falls back to the orchestrator filesystem for an executor-owned
root
Skill catalog and instruction fragments have hard byte bounds, which
also bound them below the 10K-token per-item context limit. If a
selected executor skill has the same name as a legacy local skill, the
executor selection owns that invocation and the local body is not
injected a second time.
Existing local and bundled skill loading remains in place. Omitting
`selectedCapabilityRoots` therefore preserves current local-only
behavior.
## Current semantics
- Only environment-owned locations are represented in this first
contract.
- Roots are resolved by the destination extension, not by app-server or
core.
- An unavailable executor or invalid root produces a warning and no
capabilities from that root; it does not trigger a local-filesystem
fallback.
- Selection applies to a newly started active thread.
- MCP servers, connectors, and hooks beneath a selected plugin root are
not activated yet.
- Selection is not yet persisted or inherited across resume, fork, or
subagent creation. Existing local capabilities continue to behave as
they do today in those flows.
## Planned vertical follow-ups
1. **Hosted HTTP MCP:** add an extension-backed HTTP MCP source that
works without an executor, then replace the special-purpose MCP plugins
loader with that implementation.
2. **Executor MCP:** register and execute stdio MCP servers through the
environment that owns the selected plugin root.
3. **Backend skills:** add a hosted skill source whose catalog and
bodies are accessed through extension tools rather than a filesystem.
4. **Connectors and hooks:** activate those components through their
owning extensions, using the same selected-root boundary and
component-specific runtime.
5. **Durable selection:** define the desired-selection lifecycle,
persist it, and make resume, fork, and subagent inheritance explicit
rather than accidental.
6. **Local convergence:** incrementally route existing local plugin,
skill, and MCP loading through the same extension model while preserving
current local behavior.
Each follow-up remains reviewable as an end-to-end capability. The
platform selects roots, generic thread extension data carries the
selection, and the owning extension resolves and operates its component.
## Verification
Coverage added for:
- app-server end-to-end discovery and explicit invocation of a skill
inside an executor-selected plugin root
- exclusive invocation when a selected executor skill collides with a
local skill name
- executor filesystem authority for discovery, canonicalization, and
reads
- thread extension initialization before lifecycle contributors run
- stable executor catalog context, explicit invocation, context
rebuilding, hidden skills, and preserved host/remote catalog behavior
Targeted protocol, core-skills, skills-extension, core lifecycle, and
app-server executor-skill tests were run during development.
## Why
The skills extension needs to become the path that exposes local host
skills without losing the behavior already owned by core skill loading.
Host skill discovery is not just `$CODEX_HOME/skills`: it also includes
config layers, bundled-skill settings, plugin roots, runtime extra
roots, and the filesystem for the selected primary environment.
Rather than making the extension reload host skills and risk drifting
from that authoritative load, this PR bridges the already-loaded
per-turn skills outcome into the extension. That lets the extension
advertise host skills and inject explicit `$skill` prompts while
preserving the same roots, disabled/hidden state, rendered paths, and
environment-backed file reads that the legacy path uses.
## What Changed
- Adds `HostLoadedSkills` in `core-skills` to wrap the turn's
`SkillLoadOutcome` and read `SKILL.md` through the filesystem that
loaded that skill.
- Stores `HostLoadedSkills` in turn extension data for normal turns and
review turns, so the skills extension can consume the loaded host
catalog without reloading it.
- Adds `HostSkillProvider` under `ext/skills/src/provider/host.rs`,
mapping host-loaded skill metadata into the skills-extension
catalog/read contract.
- Registers the host provider by default from
`codex_skills_extension::install()`.
- Preserves host skill metadata such as dependencies, disabled state,
hidden-from-prompt policy, and slash-normalized display paths.
- Passes host-loaded skills through `SkillListQuery` and
`SkillReadRequest` so explicit skill invocation reads only resources
from the loaded host catalog.
- Adds integration coverage for a real legacy
`$CODEX_HOME/skills/.../SKILL.md` skill being listed and injected
through the installed extension.
## Testing
- Added `installed_extension_loads_host_skills_from_legacy_roots` in
`ext/skills/tests/skills_extension.rs`.
- `just test -p codex-skills-extension`
## Why
The skills extension needs a real turn-time path before host, executor,
or remote skills can be routed through it. The previous code was mostly
a placeholder catalog/provider sketch, so there was no bounded
available-skills fragment, no source-owned `SKILL.md` read, and no place
for warnings or per-turn selection state to live.
This PR makes `ext/skills` the authority-preserving flow for listing
candidate skills and injecting only explicitly selected main prompts,
without adding more of that logic to `codex-core`.
## What changed
- Expands catalog entries with `main_prompt`, display path, short
description, dependency metadata, enabled/prompt visibility flags, and
authority/package-aware read requests.
- Replaces the placeholder `providers/*` modules with
`SkillProviderSource` and `SkillProviders`, routing list/read/search
calls by source kind and surfacing provider failures as warnings.
- Adds bounded available-skills rendering and `SKILL.md` main-prompt
truncation before the fragments enter model context.
- Resolves explicit skill selections from structured `UserInput::Skill`,
skill-file mentions, `skill://...` paths, and plain `$skill` text
mentions, then reads selected prompts through their owning provider.
- Stores mutable per-thread skills config and per-turn
catalog/selection/warning state.
- Adds `install_with_providers` so tests and future host wiring can
supply concrete providers.
## Testing
- Not run locally.
- Added `codex-rs/ext/skills/tests/skills_extension.rs` coverage for
available-catalog injection, selected prompt injection through the
owning provider, and prompt-hidden skills that remain invokable.
Adam Perry @ OpenAI ·
jif ·