codex-subagent

codex-subagent is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills. It costs 55 tokens per session (966 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of codex-subagent, MIT.

A guide for launching the OpenAI Codex command-line coding agent as a separate subagent. A subagent is another agent given a self-contained task to implement or independently check work.

In plain words
What is it for?
Running parallel coding tasks, requesting a second opinion, performing independent checks, and handing a complete task description to Codex CLI.
Why use it?
It lets an agent delegate a clearly defined coding task or verification pass while reusing the user's ChatGPT login instead of exposing an API key.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for Claude Code and Codex: disable-model-invocation in frontmatter, but also runs codex exec. Also seen: mentions subagents; mentions Codex.

Good fit Running parallel coding tasks, requesting a second opinion, performing independent checks, and handing a complete task description to Codex CLI.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills/codex-subagent
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills --skill codex-subagent
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for codex-subagent

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills/codex-subagent/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills/codex-subagent)
Your own site
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Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for codex-subagent

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills/codex-subagent"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills/codex-subagent.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 55 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 966 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 94% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00055 $0.00966
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.00483
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00193
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00097

Measured 9d ago against content hash 8ac837ec6ade, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

codex-subagent scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

94% identical to codex-subagent — 11 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/agent-orchestration/codex-subagent/SKILL.md · 97 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 97 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Codex CLI as a Subagent

Codex CLI is OpenAI's terminal coding agent. codex exec runs it non-interactively: it works autonomously in a sandbox, streams progress to stderr, and prints only the final message to stdout. Auth reuses the user's ChatGPT subscription — never an API key.

When to delegate

  • Self-contained coding task with clear success criteria (fix, feature, refactor, review).
  • Parallel work: several independent tasks at once (see Parallel runs).
  • Second opinion / independent verification of your own changes.

Do NOT delegate tasks that need conversation context you can't fully write into the prompt.

Preflight

codex --version       # missing? npm i -g @openai/codex  (or: brew install --cask codex)
codex login status    # exit 0 + "Logged in using ChatGPT" = ready

Not logged in → stop and tell the user to run codex login (one-time browser OAuth). Never read, print, or copy credentials (~/.codex/auth.json).

Launch

OUT=$(mktemp /tmp/codex-out.XXXXXX)
codex exec \
  --cd /path/to/repo \
  --sandbox workspace-write \
  --output-last-message "$OUT" \
  "Full task prompt: goal, constraints, files to touch, definition of done." \
  </dev/null
  • </dev/null is MANDATORY when stdin is not a real terminal (background shells, scripts): codex treats open stdin as extra context and waits forever for EOF.
  • Codex sees NOTHING of your conversation. Put all context in the prompt: goal, relevant paths, constraints, and how to verify it's done.
  • Long prompt? Pipe it via stdin instead: codex exec [flags] - < /tmp/task.md.
  • Wrap the command in a background/Bash subagent if your host agent has one (Cursor: Task tool with a shell subagent) so Codex's verbose stream stays out of the parent context. Fallback: a plain background terminal.
  • Runs take minutes and have no built-in timeout — background it and monitor.
  • Optional: -m <model> to override the model, --json for JSONL event stream.

Collect results

cat "$OUT"                            # final message = the deliverable
git -C /path/to/repo status --short   # see what Codex actually changed

Read the full file on GitHub · 97 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 97 lines · 55 tokens per session scan A 8ac837ec6ade

Subscribe to this mod's changes

codex-subagent is a skill published in the GitHub repository attentiondotnet/davidondrej-skills (11 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 966 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 94% identical to codex-subagent, differing in 11 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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