consult-codex

name	consult-codex
description	Dual-AI code analysis pairing OpenAI Codex with Claude code-searcher — the lightest consult variant, two citation-verified perspectives. Use for a quick second opinion on a code question.

Dual-AI Consultation: Codex vs Code-Searcher

You orchestrate consultation between OpenAI's Codex and Claude's code-searcher to provide comprehensive analysis with comparison.

When to Use This Skill

High value queries:

• Complex code analysis requiring multiple perspectives
• Debugging difficult issues
• Architecture/design questions
• Code review requests
• Finding specific implementations across a codebase

Lower value (single AI may suffice):

• Simple syntax questions
• Basic file lookups
• Straightforward documentation queries

Workflow

When the user asks a code question:

1. Build Enhanced Prompt

Problem-restate pre-flight (non-blocking). Before building the prompt, emit ONE line restating the code question you are about to dispatch (and, only if genuinely ambiguous, the alternative reading), then proceed:

Reading this as: «one-line restatement» (alt: «other reading», if any) — proceeding to consult; interrupt now to correct the framing.

Emit-and-proceed — do not ask-and-wait (the orchestrator can't reliably detect its own misframing). One line, and it guards the whole dispatch against a wrong-framing run.

Wrap the user's question with structured output requirements:

[USER_QUESTION]

=== Analysis Guidelines ===

**Structure your response with:**
1. **Summary:** 2-3 sentence overview
2. **Key Findings:** bullet points of discoveries
3. **Evidence:** file paths with line numbers (format: `file:line` or `file:start-end`)
4. **Confidence:** High/Medium/Low with reasoning
5. **Limitations:** what couldn't be determined

**Line Number Requirements:**
- ALWAYS include specific line numbers when referencing code
- Use format: `path/to/file.ext:42` or `path/to/file.ext:42-58`
- For multiple references: list each on a SEPARATE line with its own file path
  (avoid comma-separated multi-citation like `file.ts:45, 67, 98`)
- Include brief code snippets for key findings

**Examples of good citations:**
- "The authentication check at `src/auth/validate.ts:127-134`"
- "Configuration loaded from `config/settings.json:15`"
- "Error handling in `lib/errors.ts:45`, `lib/errors.ts:67-72`, and `lib/errors.ts:98`"

**Citations Index (required):** end your response with a fenced block, one line per
Key Finding (repeat each block entry's `file:line` inline in the finding as usual):
```citations
<finding #> — path/to/file.ext:LINE[-END]
```

Severity / no-manufacture block — ORCHESTRATOR-GATED. Append the block below to both agents' prompts identically ONLY when the query is a defect hunt / code review (bug, security audit, "what's wrong with…", "review this"). OMIT it for explanatory / "how does X work" questions, where "found nothing" is not meaningful. The orchestrator — which knows the query type — makes this include/omit decision once, BEFORE writing the prompt files; do not leave it to each agent to self-classify. When included, append exactly these two bullets (the text only — no leading marker):

- Tag each finding with a **Severity** — Critical (wrong/broken on expected inputs) · Warning (fails on unusual but valid inputs) · Info (noteworthy, not actionable). Severity is *impact*, orthogonal to the Confidence field (*certainty*).
- **Finding nothing is a valid, valuable result.** If the code is correct, say so plainly with one verifying note — do NOT manufacture issues to look thorough.

2. Invoke Both Analyses in Parallel

Setup (run first). $CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR is not always exported into the Bash tool shell, so resolve it with a $PWD fallback and ensure the tmp dir exists. Substitute the resolved literal path for $PROJECT_DIR, and a freshly generated RUN_ID (seconds-resolution + 4-char nonce, e.g. run-2026-05-25-143052-a7f3), into every command below. The RUN_ID in temp filenames prevents collisions between two concurrent invocations sharing $PROJECT_DIR/tmp.

PROJECT_DIR="${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR:-$PWD}"
# Validate BEFORE creating tmp — `mkdir -p` would otherwise make the check pass even
# for a bad path (it creates the dir, then `[ -d ]` always succeeds).
[ -d "$PROJECT_DIR" ] || { echo "ERROR: PROJECT_DIR '$PROJECT_DIR' is not a directory" >&2; exit 1; }
mkdir -p "$PROJECT_DIR/tmp"

# Pre-flight (fail fast, not after a 10-min hang). jq is a HARD dependency — output
# parsing needs it — so abort now rather than warn-and-continue into opaque failures.
command -v jq >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo "ERROR: 'jq' not found — required for output parsing; aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
# codex is a soft dependency — the CODEX_BIN resilience block below resolves or SKIPs it.
command -v codex >/dev/null 2>&1 || \
  zsh  -i -c "type codex" >/dev/null 2>&1 || \
  bash -i -c "type codex" >/dev/null 2>&1 || \
  echo "WARNING: 'codex' not found — will attempt nvm resolution below, else SKIP"

# Sweep stale orphans (>60 min) from crashed prior runs (best-effort, age-based —
# can theoretically delete a live run's files if it paused >60 min; acceptable).
find "$PROJECT_DIR/tmp" -maxdepth 1 -name '*-prompt-*.txt'   -mmin +60 -delete 2>/dev/null
find "$PROJECT_DIR/tmp" -maxdepth 1 -name '*-output-*.jsonl' -mmin +60 -delete 2>/dev/null

Codex binary resilience (run once, before dispatch). An nvm-managed codex can be a symlink whose @openai/codex install is broken (deleted vendor binary → spawn ... ENOENT), and a broken version can sit EARLIER on PATH than a working one. command -v / zsh -i return the broken path, so detect by RUNNING the binary. If the PATH-resolved codex fails, hunt all nvm node installs for one whose --version succeeds and emit its absolute path. Emit CODEX_BIN=SKIP if none work.

CODEX_BIN=""; INTERACTIVE_SHELL=zsh
# Capture WHICH interactive shell resolves codex (nvm may be in only one of
# ~/.zshrc / ~/.bashrc). The dispatch below uses $INTERACTIVE_SHELL so a
# .bashrc-only setup on macOS still works (prior bug: probe accepted bash,
# dispatch hardcoded zsh).
if   zsh  -i -c 'codex --version' >/dev/null 2>&1; then CODEX_BIN="codex"; INTERACTIVE_SHELL=zsh   # codex resolves via zsh
elif bash -i -c 'codex --version' >/dev/null 2>&1; then CODEX_BIN="codex"; INTERACTIVE_SHELL=bash  # codex resolves via bash
else
  # Match symlinks too (-type l): nvm/npm install codex as a bin/ symlink, which -type f misses.
  CODEX_BIN=$(find "$HOME/.nvm/versions/node" -maxdepth 5 -name codex \( -type f -o -type l \) 2>/dev/null | while IFS= read -r p; do
    "$p" --version >/dev/null 2>&1 && { printf '%s\n' "$p"; break; }
  done)
  [ -z "$CODEX_BIN" ] && CODEX_BIN="SKIP"
fi
echo "CODEX_BIN=$CODEX_BIN"                   # MUST echo: shell vars don't persist across Bash tool calls
echo "INTERACTIVE_SHELL=$INTERACTIVE_SHELL"   # the interactive shell that resolves codex; substitute into the dispatch below








TIMEOUT_CMD=
    -v   >/dev/null 2>&1;  TIMEOUT_CMD=
  -v gtimeout >/dev/null 2>&1;  TIMEOUT_CMD=

    

Two-phase dispatch (required). Tool calls in one message run concurrently, so emitting the Codex prompt-file Write and the Codex dispatch together races the dispatch ahead of the file (Codex errors on a missing prompt file). Use two messages: message 1 writes the Codex prompt file (Step 1 below); message 2 issues the Codex dispatch (Step 2) and the Code-Searcher Agent call in parallel:

Gen-dispatch timeout watchdog (GEN_TIMEOUT=1200). Each $TIMEOUT_CMD -k 10 1200-prefixed CLI gen below — SIGTERM at 1200s (20 min), SIGKILL 10s later (-k 10, which also reaps orphaned Node/MCP children) — is bounded against a hung provider CLI that would otherwise run unbounded (the harness may auto-background the dispatch, so the Bash tool's own timeout is not a reliable cap). When TIMEOUT_CMD is empty (no timeout/gtimeout): omit the $TIMEOUT_CMD -k 10 1200 prefix and dispatch unwrapped (the existing §Setup fallback) — set the Bash tool's own timeout parameter to 1300000 ms as a best-effort cap, and brew install coreutils to restore the hard guard. On a timed-out gen (exit 124 = SIGTERM, 137 = SIGKILL): the output file is empty/truncated, so the existing [ -z … ] parse guard already drops the agent — additionally surface Agent X timed out after 1200s (distinct from an auth failure, which leaves non-empty stderr) and re-count against the §Setup minimum-agent guard. Do not retry. Code-Searcher (Agent tool) carries no $TIMEOUT_CMD -k 10 1200 prefix — it is bounded by its own mechanism, not this watchdog.

• For Codex:

  Model ownership — the model is CONFIG-OWNED, never named by this skill. Do not pass -m: inherit the model and reasoning effort from Codex configuration (~/.codex/config.toml — this installation is configured for gpt-5.6-sol, high effort). Report the agent as plain "Codex" everywhere in the report; never a hardcoded version string. A hardcoded label silently misreports the model the moment the config changes: this skill advertised GPT-5.6-terra in seven places while every dispatch had been running gpt-5.6-sol, because the dispatch carries no -m and never did (corrected 2026-08-01).

  Step 1: Write the enhanced prompt to a temp file using the Write tool:

  Write to $PROJECT_DIR/tmp/codex-prompt-RUN_ID.txt with the ENHANCED_PROMPT content
  

  Step 2: Execute Codex (allow ~10 min; Codex can be slow). Pipe the prompt via stdin and capture the JSONL event stream to a file.

  Pick the form based on CODEX_BIN from Setup:

  • CODEX_BIN=codex → use the interactive-shell form below ($INTERACTIVE_SHELL resolved in Setup).
  • CODEX_BIN is an absolute path → use the absolute-path form (calls the binary directly so PATH ordering can't shadow it again).
  • CODEX_BIN=SKIP → no working codex; skip this dispatch, present only the Code-Searcher response. Label the report a degraded single-AI run — Code-Searcher is the sole agent, so there is no cross-comparison — and note that a direct Read or a lighter path would have been cheaper. Record the skip in §4 (error handling) / §5 (comparison report).

  macOS/Linux (CODEX_BIN=codex; $INTERACTIVE_SHELL = the zsh|bash literal resolved in Setup):

  cat "$PROJECT_DIR/tmp/codex-prompt-RUN_ID.txt" \
    | $TIMEOUT_CMD -k 10 1200 $INTERACTIVE_SHELL -i -c "codex exec -s read-only --json -C '$PROJECT_DIR' 2>&1" \
    > 
  

This parallel execution significantly improves response time.

2a. Parse Codex --json Output Files (jq Recipes)

Codex CLI with --json typically emits newline-delimited JSON events (JSONL). Some environments may prefix lines with terminal escape sequences; these recipes strip everything before the first { and then fromjson? safely.

Set a variable first:

FILE="$PROJECT_DIR/tmp/codex-output-RUN_ID.jsonl"   # the file the §2 dispatch redirected to

List event types (top-level .type)

jq -Rr 'sub("^[^{]*";"") | fromjson? | .type // empty' "$FILE" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

List item types (nested .item.type on item.completed)

jq -Rr 'sub("^[^{]*";"") | fromjson? | select(.type=="item.completed") | .item.type? // empty' "$FILE" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

Extract only “reasoning” and “agent_message” text (human-readable)

jq -Rr '
  sub("^[^{]*";"")
  | fromjson?
  | select(.type=="item.completed" and (.item.type? | IN("reasoning","agent_message")))
  | "===== \(.item.type) \(.item.id) =====\n\(.item.text // "")\n"
' "$FILE"

Extract ALL agent_message events (Codex frequently emits multiple; extracting only the last would truncate the answer)

out=$(jq -Rr '
  sub("^[^{]*";"")
  | fromjson?
  | select(.type=="item.completed" and .item.type?=="agent_message")
  | .item.text // empty
' "$FILE")
[ -z "$out" ] && echo "ERROR: Codex produced no agent_message events — check the raw output for errors" >&2
printf '%s\n' "$out"

Build a clean JSON array for downstream tools

jq -Rn '
  [inputs
   | sub("^[^{]*";"")
   | fromjson?
   | select(.type=="item.completed" and (.item.type? | IN("reasoning","agent_message")))
   | {type:.item.type, id:.item.id, text:(.item.text // "")}
  ]
' "$FILE"

Extract command executions (command + exit code), avoiding huge stdout/stderr

Codex JSON schemas vary slightly; this tries multiple common field names.

jq -Rr '
  sub("^[^{]*";"")
  | fromjson?
  | select(.type=="item.completed" and .item.type?=="command_execution")
  | [
      (.item.id // ""),
      (.item.command // .item.cmd // .item.command_line // "<no command field>"),
      (.item.exit_code // .item.exitCode // "<no exit>")
    ]
  | @tsv
' "$FILE"

Discover actual fields present in command_execution for your environment

jq -Rr '
  sub("^[^{]*";"")
  | fromjson?
  | select(.type=="item.completed" and .item.type?=="command_execution")
  | (.item | keys | @json)
' "$FILE" | head -n 5

3. Cleanup Temp Files

After processing the Codex response (success or failure), clean up the temp files:

rm -f "$PROJECT_DIR/tmp/codex-prompt-RUN_ID.txt" "$PROJECT_DIR/tmp/codex-output-RUN_ID.jsonl"

This prevents stale prompts from accumulating and avoids potential confusion in future runs.

4. Handle Errors

• If one agent fails or times out, still present the successful agent's response
• Note the failure in the comparison: "Agent X failed to respond: [error message]"
• Provide analysis based on the available response

5. Create Comparison Analysis

Use this exact format:

---

Codex Response

[Raw output from codex-cli agent]

---

Code-Searcher (Claude) Response

[Raw output from code-searcher agent]

---

Comparison Table

(MANDATORY — always render this table on a multi-agent run; it is the at-a-glance visual diff readers rely on, so never skip it. Omit only in a degraded single-AI run, where there is nothing to compare.)

Aspect	Codex	Code-Searcher (Claude)
File paths	[Specific/Generic/None]	[Specific/Generic/None]
Line numbers	[Provided/Missing]	[Provided/Missing]
Code snippets	[Yes/No + details]	[Yes/No + details]
Unique findings	[List any]	[List any]
Accuracy	[Note discrepancies]	[Note discrepancies]
Strengths	[Summary]	[Summary]

Agreement Level

• High Agreement: Both AIs reached similar conclusions - Higher confidence in findings
• Partial Agreement: Some overlap with unique findings - Investigate differences
• Disagreement: Contradicting findings - Manual verification recommended

[State which level applies and explain]

Findings by Corroboration

Bucket each distinct finding by how many agents independently reached it:

• Corroborated — both agents report it. Highest trust as a consensus signal — this dual has no citation-verification stage, so it is agreement, not verified correctness.
• Solo — reported by one agent only. Plausible but unconfirmed.
• Disputed — the agents contradict on the point. Flag for manual verification.

(Cluster findings across agents by their claim + file:line — the Citations Index blocks make this pairing mechanical. On a defect-hunt run, tag each listed finding with its agent-assigned Severity — Critical/Warning/Info.)

Key Differences

• Codex: [unique findings, strengths, approach]
• Code-Searcher: [unique findings, strengths, approach]

Synthesized Summary

[Combine the best insights from both sources into unified analysis. Prioritize findings that are:

1. Corroborated by both agents
2. Supported by specific file:line citations
3. Include verifiable code snippets]

Recommendation

[Which source was more helpful for this specific query and why. Consider:

• Accuracy of file paths and line numbers
• Quality of code snippets provided
• Completeness of analysis
• Unique insights offered]