Question 1

What are Codex Skills?

Accepted Answer

Codex Skills are modular capabilities for the OpenAI Codex CLI, officially supported since December 2025. A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md (name and description in YAML frontmatter) plus optional scripts, references and assets. Codex first loads only the name and description into context and activates the full instructions only when a skill matches the current task (progressive disclosure).

Question 2

How do I install a Codex Skill?

Accepted Answer

Codex reads skills from the CODEX_HOME/skills folder (by default ~/.codex/skills). You place the skill folder there or use the official skill-installer, which installs skills directly from the catalog or from any GitHub path. The skill is then immediately available in Codex.

Question 3

What is the difference between openai/skills and openai/plugins?

Accepted Answer

openai/skills was the first official skill catalog and is now marked deprecated. Its successor is openai/plugins. A plugin bundles several skills, MCP servers, agents and slash commands into one package via a .codex-plugin/plugin.json manifest. Both repositories are included in this directory so you know the canonical sources.

Question 4

How are Codex Skills different from AGENTS.md?

Accepted Answer

AGENTS.md holds project-wide instructions that Codex reads hierarchically from the home configuration down to the working directory. Skills, by contrast, are task-specific, reusable building blocks loaded only on demand. So AGENTS.md sets the general frame while skills provide concrete capabilities for individual tasks.

Question 5

Are Claude Code Skills compatible with Codex?

Accepted Answer

Codex and Claude Code use the same SKILL.md format, so many skills transfer between both tools. Several entries here are declared ports of Claude skill packs, and the official migrate-to-codex skill moves instruction files, skills, agents and MCP configuration from other tools into Codex.

Question 6

How do I invoke a Codex Skill?

Accepted Answer

You can invoke skills explicitly with the /skills command or with $skill-name. Alternatively, Codex picks a matching skill automatically as soon as your request matches its stored description. The earlier custom prompts under ~/.codex/prompts are now considered deprecated and are being replaced by skills.

Codex Skills Directory

Frequently Asked Questions about Codex Skills

Codex Skills directory launched