Ultragoal

Ultragoal Workflow

Use when the user asks for ultragoal, create-goals, complete-goals, durable multi-goal planning, or sequential execution over Codex /goal.

Purpose

ultragoal turns a brief into repo-native artifacts and then drives a Codex goal safely through goal tools. New plans default to a stable pointer-style aggregate Codex goal for the whole durable plan in .omx/ultragoal/goals.json, including later accepted/appended stories under the original brief constraints, while OMX tracks G001/G002 story progress in the ledger. Ultragoal does not call Codex /goal clear; before multiple sequential ultragoal runs in one Codex session/thread, manually run /goal clear in the Codex UI so the previous completed aggregate goal does not block or confuse the next create_goal.

• .omx/ultragoal/brief.md
• .omx/ultragoal/goals.json
• .omx/ultragoal/ledger.jsonl (checkpoint and structured steering audit events)

Existing aggregate plans with the legacy enumerated objective are migrated to the stable pointer objective on read, persisted to goals.json, retained in codexObjectiveAliases for already-active hidden Codex goal reconciliation, and audited with an aggregate_objective_migrated ledger entry.

Create goals

1. Run one of:
   • omx ultragoal create-goals --brief "<brief>"
   • omx ultragoal create-goals --brief-file <path>
   • cat <brief> | omx ultragoal create-goals --from-stdin
   • omx ultragoal create-goals --codex-goal-mode per-story --brief "<brief>" only when one Codex goal context per story is explicitly preferred
2. Inspect .omx/ultragoal/goals.json and refine if needed.

Complete goals

Loop until omx ultragoal status reports all goals complete:

1. Run omx ultragoal complete-goals.
2. Read the printed handoff.
3. Call get_goal.
4. If no active Codex goal exists, call create_goal with the printed payload. In aggregate mode, if the same aggregate Codex objective is already active, continue the current OMX story without creating a new Codex goal.
5. Complete the current OMX story only.
6. Run a completion audit against the story objective and real artifacts/tests.
7. In aggregate mode, do not call update_goal for intermediate stories; checkpoint with a fresh get_goal snapshot whose aggregate objective is still active. On the final story only, first run the mandatory final cleanup/review gate below; call update_goal({status: "complete"}) only after that gate is clean, then call get_goal again for a fresh complete snapshot.
8. Checkpoint the durable ledger with that snapshot. Intermediate aggregate checkpoints use only --codex-goal-json; final clean checkpoints also require --quality-gate-json: omx ultragoal checkpoint --goal-id <id> --status complete --evidence "<evidence>" --codex-goal-json <get_goal-json-or-path> [--quality-gate-json <quality-gate-json-or-path>]
9. If blocked or failed, checkpoint failure: omx ultragoal checkpoint --goal-id <id> --status failed --evidence "<blocker/evidence>"
10. For legacy per-story completed-goal blockers, preserve the non-terminal blocker with: omx ultragoal checkpoint --goal-id <id> --status blocked --evidence "<completed legacy Codex goal blocks create_goal in this thread>" --codex-goal-json <get_goal-json-or-path>
11. Resume failed goals with omx ultragoal complete-goals --retry-failed.

Dynamic steering

Use omx ultragoal steer when real findings or blockers prove the current story decomposition should change while the aggregate objective and constraints stay fixed. Steering is explicit-only and evidence-backed; broad natural-language requests are rejected instead of guessed.

Allowed mutation kinds are:

• add_subgoal
• split_subgoal
• reorder_pending
• revise_pending_wording
• annotate_ledger
• mark_blocked_superseded

Examples:

omx ultragoal steer --kind add_subgoal --title "Investigate blocker" --objective "Validate the blocker and report evidence." --evidence "log/test output" --rationale "The blocker changes the safe execution order." --json
omx ultragoal steer --directive-json ./steering.json --json

Steering invariants:

• Do not edit the aggregate Codex objective, original brief constraints, quality gates, or completion status. The aggregate objective is a stable pointer to .omx/ultragoal/goals.json and .omx/ultragoal/ledger.jsonl, not an enumeration of initial goal ids.
• Do not hard-delete goals, auto-complete work, weaken verification, or silently mutate .omx/ultragoal.
• Accepted and rejected attempts append structured audit entries to .omx/ultragoal/ledger.jsonl.
• Superseded goals remain in goals.json with steering metadata and are skipped for scheduling.
• Blocked goals without replacements are skipped for scheduling but still block final completion until later explicit steering replaces or supersedes them.

UserPromptSubmit uses the same steering API only for structured directives such as OMX_ULTRAGOAL_STEER: { ... }, omx.ultragoal.steer: { ... }, or omx ultragoal steer: { ... }. Normal prose does not mutate state, and repeated prompt-submit directives dedupe by prompt signature or idempotency key.

Use Ultragoal and Team together

Use ultragoal and team together for a durable Ultragoal story that benefits from parallel execution. Ultragoal remains leader-owned: .omx/ultragoal/goals.json stores the story plan and .omx/ultragoal/ledger.jsonl stores checkpoints. Team is the parallel execution engine and returns task/evidence status to the leader.

The leader checkpoints Ultragoal from Team evidence with a fresh get_goal snapshot:

omx ultragoal checkpoint --goal-id <id> --status complete --evidence "<team evidence mentioning .omx/ultragoal and <id>>" --codex-goal-json <fresh-get_goal-json-or-path>

Workers do not own ultragoal goal state, do not create worker ultragoal ledgers, and do not checkpoint Ultragoal. Team launch remains explicit; Ultragoal does not auto-launch Team and performs no hidden Codex goal mutation.

Mandatory final cleanup and review gate

The final ultragoal story is not complete until the active agent has run the final quality gate:

1. Run targeted verification for the story.

2. Run ai-slop-cleaner on changed files only; if there are no relevant edits, the cleaner still runs and records a passed/no-op report.

3. Rerun verification after the cleaner pass.

4. Run $code-review. Clean means codeReview.recommendation: "APPROVE" and codeReview.architectStatus: "CLEAR"; COMMENT, WATCH, REQUEST CHANGES, and BLOCK are non-clean.

5. If review is non-clean, do not call update_goal. Record durable blocker work instead:

   omx ultragoal record-review-blockers --goal-id <id> --title "Resolve final code-review blockers" --objective "<blocker-resolution objective>" --evidence "<review findings>" --codex-goal-json <active-get-goal-json-or-path>
   

   This marks the current story review_blocked, appends a pending blocker-resolution story, keeps the Codex goal active, and lets omx ultragoal complete-goals start the blocker next. In legacy per-story mode, the blocker may need an available Codex goal context because the old per-story Codex goal remains active/incomplete.

6. If review is clean, call update_goal({status: "complete"}), call get_goal, and checkpoint with a structured final gate:

   omx ultragoal checkpoint --goal-id <id> --status complete --evidence "<tests/files/review evidence>" --codex-goal-json <fresh-complete-get-goal-json-or-path> --quality-gate-json <quality-gate-json-or-path>
   

--quality-gate-json must include:

{
  "aiSlopCleaner": { "status": "passed", "evidence": "cleaner report" },
  "verification": { "status": "passed", "commands": ["npm test"], "evidence": "post-cleaner verification" },
  "codeReview": { "recommendation": "APPROVE", "architectStatus": "CLEAR", "evidence": "final review synthesis" }
}

Constraints

• The shell command cannot directly invoke Codex interactive /goal; it emits a model-facing handoff for the active Codex agent.
• Ultragoal intentionally does not invoke /goal clear or hidden thread/goal/clear; the model-facing tool surface only provides get_goal, create_goal, and update_goal.
• After a completed aggregate ultragoal run, clear the Codex goal manually with /goal clear before starting another ultragoal run in the same session/thread.
• Never call create_goal when get_goal reports a different active goal.
• Never call update_goal unless the aggregate run or legacy per-story goal is actually complete.
• In aggregate mode, intermediate story checkpoints require a matching active Codex snapshot; final story completion requires a matching complete snapshot after update_goal.
• Completion checkpoints require read-only Codex snapshot reconciliation: pass fresh get_goal JSON/path with --codex-goal-json; shell commands and hooks must not mutate Codex goal state.
• Treat ledger.jsonl as the durable audit trail; checkpoint after every success or failure.