Codex skills: create SKILL.md, skill folder locations and $skill invocation

• SKILL.md (required): instructions plus YAML frontmatter with name and description. The description should say when the skill should and should not trigger.
• scripts/ (optional): executable code.
• references/ (optional): documentation.
• assets/ (optional): templates and other resources.
• agents/openai.yaml (optional): UI appearance, invocation policy and tool dependencies.

---
name: release-notes
description: Draft release notes from recent commits. Use when the user asks for release notes or a changelog. Do not use for code changes.
---

1. Read the commits since the last tag.
2. Group changes into Features, Fixes and Other.
3. Write the notes in plain Markdown.

• $CWD/.agents/skills: the folder where you launch Codex.
• $CWD/../.agents/skills: parent folders, when you launch inside a Git repository.
• $REPO_ROOT/.agents/skills: the top of the repository.
• $HOME/.agents/skills: your personal skills for every project.
• /etc/codex/skills: admin-installed skills.
• System skills bundled with Codex.

Codex scans .agents/skills from the current folder up to the repository root. Skills with the same name are not merged; both appear in the selector. Symlinked skill folders work.

• Explicit: in the Codex CLI or IDE extension, run /skills or type $ and the skill name.
• Implicit: Codex may choose a skill on its own when the task matches its description.

$skill-creator

$skill-installer linear

To stop Codex from picking a skill on its own, set policy.allow_implicit_invocation to false in agents/openai.yaml. Explicit $skill calls still work.

policy:
  allow_implicit_invocation: false

To disable a local skill completely, add a [[skills.config]] entry to ~/.codex/config.toml and restart Codex.

[[skills.config]]
path = "/path/to/skill/SKILL.md"
enabled = false

• Codex detects skill changes automatically. If an update does not show, restart Codex.
• The initial skills list is capped at 2% of the context window, or 8,000 characters if the window size is unknown. With many skills installed, Codex shortens descriptions first.
• To share skills with others, package them in a plugin.