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charlesgong-openai 64bdeed9f7 [codex] Preserve skill descriptions outside model context (#29006)
## Why

Skill descriptions are used in model-visible lists: the default
available-skills catalog that supports implicit selection, and the
on-demand `skills.list` tool response used to discover orchestrator
skills. A single overlong description should not consume a
disproportionate share of either list.

Enforcing the 1024-character limit while loading or migrating skills is
the wrong boundary: it rejects otherwise-valid skills and discards
metadata that non-model consumers and full skill reads may need. Skill
metadata and `SKILL.md` content should remain intact; the cap belongs at
model-visible list rendering boundaries.

## What changed

- Preserve full `description` and `metadata.short-description` values
when loading skills.
- Preserve full external-agent command descriptions during
`source-command-*` migration instead of skipping commands solely because
their descriptions exceed 1024 characters.
- Preserve full normalized orchestrator descriptions in the underlying
skills catalog.
- Cap each description at 1024 Unicode characters when rendering the
default available-skills context in `codex-core-skills` and
`codex-skills-extension`.
- Apply the same cap when serializing descriptions in the model-visible
`skills.list` response.
- Render truncated descriptions as 1021 original characters plus `...`.
- Leave explicit `$skill` injection, `skills.read`, underlying metadata,
and on-disk `SKILL.md` files unchanged and full-fidelity.

## Implicit skill selection

Codex injects a bounded catalog containing each implicitly allowed
skill's name, description, and source locator, together with
instructions to use a skill when the task clearly matches its
description. The model makes that semantic choice; after selecting a
skill, it reads the full `SKILL.md` from its filesystem or provider
resource. Explicit `$skill` mentions remain a separate path that injects
the full skill instructions. For orchestrator skills, `skills.list`
provides bounded discovery metadata before `skills.read` returns the
full selected resource.

## Test plan

- `just test -p codex-core-skills`
- `just test -p codex-skills-extension`
- `just test -p codex-external-agent-migration`

The focused regressions verify that overlong metadata is preserved at
load and migration boundaries while default available-skills rendering
and `skills.list` output produce the 1021-character prefix plus `...`.
64bdeed9f7 ยท 2026-06-19 12:47:53 -07:00
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