Coding Agent

Coding-Agent Skill

Entry Gate

Only execute this skill after explicit approval in the current conversation context:

• APPROVE

Approval must correspond to the latest pending plan in-context. If no matching approved plan exists, stop and request: Run /plan first, then reply APPROVE.

Execution Workflow

1. Verify toolchain before major workflows:

• command -v codex && codex --version
• command -v timeout
• command -v gh
• command -v claude || test -x ~/.claude/local/claude

2. Gather read-only context first (rg, git status, git diff, docs).
3. Execute the approved implementation plan.
4. Run relevant validation:

• formatting/lint
• typecheck
• unit/integration/e2e tests as applicable

5. Report exact commands run, outcomes, and residual risk.

Review Routing Contract (Hard Rule)

• Plan artifact review must run via scripts/plan-review or scripts/plan-review-live.
• PR/code review must run via codex review --base ... (or safe-review.sh wrapper).
• Do not publish a manual review summary before running the review command/wrapper.

ACP-First Routing

For harness-style implementation/review requests, ACP routing is mode-specific:

• Implementation uses ACP first (via acpx) with CLI fallback.
• Review keeps review-native codex review --base first, then ACP fallback.
• CLI fallback chain remains mandatory if ACP is unavailable.
• Direct ACPX calls in coding-agent orchestration must use scripts/acpx-direct.
• Do not emit raw acpx ... commands from prompts or wrappers.
• Disable ACP-first per run with CODING_AGENT_ACP_ENABLE=0.
• Override ACPX binary path with CODING_AGENT_ACPX_CMD.
• Override ACP agent alias with CODING_AGENT_ACP_AGENT (default: codex).

Known runtime limitation:

• Issue #43 tracks upstream ACP spawned-run observability and relay profile alias behavior.
• Use repo-side mitigation and fallback guidance in references/acp-troubleshooting.md.

Verbosity Mode (Progress Updates)

CODING_AGENT_VERBOSE controls execution progress verbosity. Default is off.

• off (default): concise progress updates.
• on: include structured progress updates with Now, Why, and Next.

Accepted truthy values (case-insensitive): 1, true, on, yes, verbose. Accepted falsy values: unset, 0, false, off, no.

When verbose mode is on:

• Send kickoff execution status in Now/Why/Next format.
• For long-running tasks, send periodic status updates.
• Send a completion update with outcome and blockers (if any).

Verbosity must not block execution. After explaining intent, proceed immediately unless waiting on a required user decision or an explicit approval gate. Status updates are not a wait state: if the next step is executable, run it in the same turn.

Long-Run Hard-Fail Policy

For wrapper/CLI runs expected to exceed 30 seconds:

• Emit RUN_EVENT start.
• Emit RUN_EVENT heartbeat every 20 seconds while running.
• Emit RUN_EVENT interrupted immediately on signal/timeout/interruption.
• Emit RUN_EVENT failed on non-interruption errors.
• Emit RUN_EVENT done on success.

Guardrails

• No bypass-by-default. Do not use approval-bypass flags unless the user explicitly requests bypass.
• Use feature branches for code changes.
• Keep changes scoped to the approved plan.

Reference Loading

Open only the references needed for the current task:

• references/WORKFLOW.md
• references/STANDARDS.md
• references/tooling.md
• references/codex-cli.md
• references/claude-code.md
• references/reviews.md