Codex Agent Skills

This repository was OpenAI's catalog of Agent Skills for Codex: folders containing instructions, scripts, and resources that an AI agent can discover and use to complete specific tasks in a repeatable way. It's aimed at developers who use Codex and want to package or reuse task-specific capabilities (like addressing GitHub PR comments or drafting a plan) without rebuilding them from scratch each time. The repo is now deprecated in favor of the OpenAI Plugins repository, which hosts current skill and plugin examples.

Before relying on this repo for new work, know that it is frozen. The maintainers point users toward openai/plugins for anything current, and toward the Build plugins guide for creating new skill-only plugins. This repo still works as a reference for how the skill format and installer flow were structured, and for understanding the underlying Agent Skills open standard.

Key features

• Skill folders: each skill is a self-contained folder of instructions, scripts, and resources an agent can invoke to perform a task.
• Three-tier catalog: skills are organized into .system (auto-installed with the latest Codex), .curated (vetted, install by name), and .experimental (install by folder path or GitHub URL).
• Skill installer: the $skill-installer command inside Codex handles fetching and installing curated or experimental skills without manual file copying.
• Per-skill licensing: each skill directory carries its own LICENSE.txt, so terms can differ skill to skill rather than applying one blanket repo license.
• Reusability: the "write once, use everywhere" model lets teams package a task once and reuse it across projects and sessions.

Ideal use cases

• You're maintaining or auditing an existing Codex setup that already references skills from this repo and you need to understand how they were structured or installed.
• You're researching the history or design of the Agent Skills format before adopting the newer plugin-based approach.
• You want to see working examples of .system, .curated, and .experimental skill organization as a reference point for building your own plugin.

This repo is not the right place to start a new Codex skill project. Since it's deprecated, new skills, bug fixes, and installer improvements land in openai/plugins instead. If you're building a skill-only plugin from scratch, follow the official Build plugins guide rather than copying patterns from this archive. Treat anything here as historical context, not a foundation for production work.

Installation

There's no standalone package to install; skills are consumed inside Codex itself.

1. System skills in the .system folder are installed automatically with the latest version of Codex. No action needed.
2. Curated skills in .curated can be installed by name from inside Codex:

$skill-installer gh-address-comments

3. Experimental skills in .experimental need the folder specified, either by describing it:

$skill-installer install the create-plan skill from the .experimental folder

or by pasting the GitHub directory URL directly:

$skill-installer install https://github.com/openai/skills/tree/main/skills/.experimental/create-plan

4. After installing any skill, restart Codex so it picks up the newly added skill.

Because the repo is deprecated, expect these installation paths to eventually stop being maintained; check openai/plugins for the current install flow before setting up a new environment.