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OpenAI added two features to Codex that change how it works. Skills and automations. Most people missed the announcement, but the developers using them are getting different results now.
Here's the simple version. Skills are saved instructions you create once. Automations are scheduled tasks that run on their own. Put them together and Codex stops waiting for you to ask it things. It just does them.
Skills Are Just Saved Instructions
Think of skills like recipes. You write down the steps once, give it a name, and Codex follows those steps whenever you need them.
You can trigger a skill two ways. Type its name when you talk to Codex, or let Codex pick the right skill automatically based on what you're asking for.
The benefit is you stop repeating yourself. Need Codex to check something specific in your code every week? Write a skill for it. Need it to format reports a certain way? Save that as a skill too.
Example: Someone made a skill that pulls info from Linear project management tool. Now when they ask Codex about a task, it grabs the ticket details automatically.
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Where Skills Live on Your Computer
Skills sit in specific folders on your computer. Personal skills go in one folder and work across all your projects. Project-specific skills go in another folder and only work for that project.
This matters for teams. If everyone on your team has the same skill installed, you all get consistent results. No more "it works on my machine" problems.
Creating Skills Is Easy
Codex has a built-in tool called $skill-creator that makes skills for you. Just describe what you want and it builds it. You don't need to know how to code.
You can also create them manually by making a folder with specific files inside, but most people let Codex handle that part.
Automations Run While You Work on Other Things
Automations are scheduled tasks. Set one up and Codex runs it in the background at whatever time you choose. Daily, weekly, whenever.
The results show up in your inbox inside the Codex app. If there's nothing to report, Codex just archives it and moves on.
For people using Git for version control, automations run in a separate workspace so they don't interfere with what you're currently doing. For everyone else, they run in your main project folder.
Security note: Automations follow your permission settings. You control what Codex can and can't do when running on its own.
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What People Are Actually Using This For
One developer has Codex scan their work from each day and update their personal skills if something went wrong.
Another person set up a daily summary that tells them what changed in their project over the last 24 hours. Grouped by topic with links to relevant discussions.
Someone else built a skill that finds bugs they accidentally created in the past week and fixes them automatically. It runs every morning.
The pattern is always the same. Build the skill once, schedule it to run automatically, stop thinking about it.
Tip: Test your automation manually first before scheduling it. Make sure it does what you expect. Then let it run on its own.
Installing Skills Other People Made
OpenAI hosts a collection of pre-made skills on GitHub. You install them using a tool built into Codex called $skill-installer. Just tell it which skill you want.
People in the community are building more all the time. Skills for project management tools, note-taking apps, code quality checks, all kinds of things.
When you install a skill, you need to restart Codex to pick it up. After that, it's available whenever you need it.
Why This Matters
Codex used to work like this: you ask, it answers. Now it can work like this: you set it up once, it handles tasks on its own.
The difference shows up when you have repetitive work. Things you do every day or every week. Instead of manually doing them or manually asking Codex each time, you automate them.
People are building libraries of personal skills that get more useful as their projects grow. The time investment upfront pays back quickly.
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