We support requirements on Unix, loading from
`/etc/codex/requirements.toml`. On MacOS, we also support MDM.
Now, on Windows, we'll load requirements from
`%ProgramData%\OpenAI\Codex\requirements.toml`
## What changed
- In `codex-rs/core/src/skills/injection.rs`, we now honor explicit
`UserInput::Skill { name, path }` first, then fall back to text mentions
only when safe.
- In `codex-rs/tui/src/bottom_pane/chat_composer.rs`, mention selection
is now token-bound (selected mention is tied to the specific inserted
`$token`), and we snapshot bindings at submit time so selection is not
lost.
- In `codex-rs/tui/src/chatwidget.rs` and
`codex-rs/tui/src/bottom_pane/mod.rs`, submit/queue paths now consume
the submit-time mention snapshot (instead of rereading cleared composer
state).
- In `codex-rs/tui/src/mention_codec.rs` and
`codex-rs/tui/src/bottom_pane/chat_composer_history.rs`, history now
round-trips mention targets so resume restores the same selected
duplicate.
- In `codex-rs/tui/src/bottom_pane/skill_popup.rs` and
`codex-rs/tui/src/bottom_pane/chat_composer.rs`, duplicate labels are
normalized to `[Repo]` / `[App]`, app rows no longer show `Connected -`,
and description space is a bit wider.
<img width="550" height="163" alt="Screenshot 2026-02-05 at 9 56 56 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/346a7eb2-a342-4a49-aec8-68dfec0c7d89"
/>
<img width="550" height="163" alt="Screenshot 2026-02-05 at 9 57 09 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5e04d9af-cccf-4932-98b3-c37183e445ed"
/>
## Before vs now
- Before: selecting a duplicate could still submit the default/repo
match, and resume could lose which duplicate was originally selected.
- Now: the exact selected target (skill path or app id) is preserved
through submit, queue/restore, and resume.
## Manual test
1. Build and run this branch locally:
- `cd /Users/daniels/code/codex/codex-rs`
- `cargo build -p codex-cli --bin codex`
- `./target/debug/codex`
2. Open mention picker with `$` and pick a duplicate entry (not the
first one).
3. Confirm duplicate UI:
- repo duplicate rows show `[Repo]`
- app duplicate rows show `[App]`
- app description does **not** start with `Connected -`
4. Submit the prompt, then press Up to restore draft and submit again.
Expected: it keeps the same selected duplicate target.
5. Use `/resume` to reopen the session and send again.
Expected: restored mention still resolves to the same duplicate target.
Add a centralized FileWatcher in codex-core (using notify) that watches
skill roots from the config layer stack (recursive)
Send `SkillsChanged` events when relevant file system changes are
detected
On `SkillsChanged`:
* Invalidate the skills cache immediately in ThreadManager
* Emit EventMsg::SkillsUpdateAvailable to active sessions
~~* Broadcast a new app-server notification:
SkillsListUpdatedNotification~~
This change does not inject new items into the event stream. That means
the agent will not know about new skills, so it won't be able to
implicitly invoke new skills. It also won't know about changes to
existing skills, so if it has already read the contents of a modified
skill, it will not honor the new behavior.
This change also does not detect modifications to AGENTS.md.
I plan to address these limitations in a follow-on PR modeled after
#9985. Injection of new skills and AGENTS was deemed to risky, hence the
need to split the feature into two stages. The changes in this PR were
designed to easily accommodate the second stage once we have some other
foundational changes in place.
Testing: In addition to automated tests, I did manual testing to confirm
that newly-created skills, deleted skills, and renamed skills are
reflected in the TUI skill picker menu. Also confirmed that
modifications to behaviors for explicitly-invoked skills are honored.
---------
Co-authored-by: Xin Lin <xl@openai.com>
Updated system skills bundled with Codex were not correctly replacing
the user's skills in their .system folder.
- Fix `.codex-system-skills.marker` not updating by hashing embedded
system skills recursively (nested dirs + file contents), so updates
trigger a reinstall.
- Added a build Cargo hook to rerun if there are changes in
`src/skills/assets/samples/*`, ensuring embedded skill updates rebuild
correctly under caching.
- Add a small unit test to ensure nested entries are included in the
fingerprint.
Load requirements from Codex Backend. It only does this for enterprise
customers signed in with ChatGPT.
Todo in follow-up PRs:
* Add to app-server and exec too
* Switch from fail-open to fail-closed on failure
An experimental flow for env var skill dependencies. Skills can now
declare required env vars in SKILL.md; if missing, the CLI prompts the
user to get the value, and Core will store it in memory (eventually to a
local persistent store)
<img width="790" height="169" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/cd928918-9403-43cb-a7e7-b8d59bcccd9a"
/>
- [x] Support `/apps` slash command to browse the apps in tui.
- [x] Support inserting apps to prompt using `$`.
- [x] Lots of simplification/renaming from connectors to apps.
Config includes multiple code execution entrypoints.
Now, we load the config from predetermined locations first
(~/.codex/config.toml etc), use those to learn which folders are
'trusted', and only load additional config from the CWD if it is
trusted.
## Summary
We have a variety of things we refer to as instructions in the code
base: our current canonical terms are:
- base instructions (raw string)
- developer instructions (has a type in protocol)
- user instructions
We also have `instructions` floating around in various places. We should
standardize on the above, and start using types to prevent them from
ending up in the wrong place. There will be additional PRs, but I'm
going to keep these small so we can easily follow them!
## Testing
- [x] Tests pass, this is purely a file move
We’re introducing a new SKILL.toml to hold skill metadata so Codex can
deliver a richer Skills experience.
Initial focus is the interface block:
```
[interface]
display_name = "Optional user-facing name"
short_description = "Optional user-facing description"
icon_small = "./assets/small-400px.png"
icon_large = "./assets/large-logo.svg"
brand_color = "#3B82F6"
default_prompt = "Optional surrounding prompt to use the skill with"
```
All fields are exposed via the app server API.
display_name and short_description are consumed by the TUI.
Skills discovery now follows symlink entries for SkillScope::User
($CODEX_HOME/skills) and SkillScope::Admin (e.g. /etc/codex/skills).
Added cycle protection: directories are canonicalized and tracked in a
visited set to prevent infinite traversal from circular links.
Added per-root traversal limits to avoid accidentally scanning huge
trees:
- max depth: 6
- max directories: 2000 (logs a warning if truncated)
For now, symlink stat failures and traversal truncation are logged
rather than surfaced as UI “invalid SKILL.md” warnings.
Fixes#8609
# Summary
Emphasize single-line name/description values and quoting when values
could be interpreted as YAML syntax.
# Testing
Not run (skill-only change.)
This change improves the skills render section
- Separate the skills list from usage rules with clear subheadings
- Define skill more clearly upfront
- Remove confusing trigger/discovery wording and make reference-following guidance more actionable
We were assembling the skill roots in two different places, and the
admin root was missing in one of them. This change centralizes root
selection into a helper so both paths stay in sync.
https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/8235 introduced `ConfigBuilder` and
this PR updates all call non-test call sites to use it instead of
`Config::load_from_base_config_with_overrides()`.
This is important because `load_from_base_config_with_overrides()` uses
an empty `ConfigRequirements`, which is a reasonable default for testing
so the tests are not influenced by the settings on the host. This method
is now guarded by `#[cfg(test)]` so it cannot be used by business logic.
Because `ConfigBuilder::build()` is `async`, many of the test methods
had to be migrated to be `async`, as well. On the bright side, this made
it possible to eliminate a bunch of `block_on_future()` stuff.
1. Remove PUBLIC skills and introduce SYSTEM skills embedded in the
binary and installed into $CODEX_HOME/skills/.system at startup.
2. Skills are now always enabled (feature flag removed).
3. Update skills/list to accept forceReload and plumb it through (not
used by clients yet).
1. Adds SkillScope::Public end-to-end (core + protocol) and loads skills
from the public cache directory
2. Improves repo skill discovery by searching upward for the nearest
.codex/skills within a git repo
3. Deduplicates skills by name with deterministic ordering to avoid
duplicates across sources
4. Fixes garbled “Skill errors” overlay rendering by preventing pending
history lines from being injected during the modal
5. Updates the project docs “Skills” intro wording to avoid hardcoded
paths
refactor the way we load and manage skills:
1. Move skill discovery/caching into SkillsManager and reuse it across
sessions.
2. Add the skills/list API (Op::ListSkills/SkillsListResponse) to fetch
skills for one or more cwds. Also update app-server for VSCE/App;
3. Trigger skills/list during session startup so UIs preload skills and
handle errors immediately.
This PR changes the length validation for SKILL.md `name` and
`description` fields so they use character counts rather than byte
counts. Aligned character limits to other harnesses.
This addresses #7730.
1. Skills load once in core at session start; the cached outcome is
reused across core and surfaced to TUI via SessionConfigured.
2. TUI detects explicit skill selections, and core injects the matching
SKILL.md content into the turn when a selected skill is present.