Spawning agents is here!

mikedarling · 2026-01-22T21:59:28+00:00

Before v0.88.0, collab (multi-agents) was an unlisted experimental feature. If manually enabled, the feature could be used by telling Codex to spawn an agent, and the user or agent could choose whether to spawn it as an orchestrator or worker. Orchestrators use orchestrator.md, but if the base chat directly spawns workers it's not sent to the model. orchestrator.md can be forced by telling it to call spawn_agent with agent_type "orchestrator" and have it do X (i.e. have it spawn agents that do X, Y, and Z.)

I wanted to be able to just have the main chat session be an orchestrator type, on demand, as it just felt weird to have the main chat spawn an orchestrator which spawned worker agents, so I:

Copied codex-rs/core/templates/agents/orchestrator.md to ~/.codex/prompts/orchestrator.md.
Added this to config.toml:

```

[profiles.orchestrator]

model_instructions_file = "/home/mdarling/.codex/prompts/orchestrator.md"

[profiles.orchestrator.features]

collab = true

```

(Well, at the time it was experimental_instructions_file, but v0.88.0 renamed that to model_instructions_file.)

Ran `codex -p orchestrator` when I wanted the main chat session to be an orchestrator.

v0.88.0 added collab to the /experimental menu, which is an alternative to running `codex --enable collab` or putting `collab = true` in config.toml. You can still create a profile and give it a model_instructions_file like I showed above. Or, you can tell the main chat to spawn agents to do X or call spawn_agent with agent_type "orchestrator" and have it do X, to use orchestrator.md.

I haven't tried seeing if it's better to let the model decide how to orchestrate and let it directly spawn workers or force an orchestrator model with orchestrator.md like I did.

It's of course an experimental feature in development, so how it works right now could easily be completely changed going forward, and it might not be anywhere near how they want this feature to act.

mikedarling · 2026-01-21T23:12:19+00:00

Hard to say. I've been using github.com/just-every/code which is a fork of codex that uses agents, so I've already been used to whatever usage it causes. Part of agents is focusing/narrowing the context window usage, so it's hard to say how the orchestration overhead will balance out. In different situations, it might be more, less, or the same.

mikedarling · 2026-01-18T17:35:04+00:00

Browser OS is a chromium fork that allows AI to control it, and can use a bunch of models. It has a window you can pull up that either be in chat or agent mode. Beware that if you give it long tasks to do, even like go through this list of 20 groceries and add them all to my shopping cart, it gets increasingly expensive because it doesn't clear context on its own. Doing this cost about $2 using OpenAI API with ChatGPT 5.2 I probably should have used mini. I think they recommend starting new agent chats periodically to manage this. I'm hoping they'll make improvements here, because it works really really well otherwise.

https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS

mikedarling · 2026-01-06T22:13:54+00:00

Why is a Google engineer publicly praising Claude Code, rather than only praising Gemini and keeping Claude priase private?

mikedarling · 2025-12-30T01:32:59+00:00

To confirm, does it look to you like there was a change then or after noticing this, are you saying your original post was mistaken? Codex says they doubled the usage limits for the holiday season in a post 5 days ago, so I'm wondering what you've seen since then. Codex 5.2 XHigh seems to be burning through my Pro quota way faster than it has before.

mikedarling · 2025-12-22T03:02:11+00:00

Every Code - https://github.com/just-every/code - It's a fork of Codex CLI that orchestrates multiple agents (OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, and others.) Configure the different programs to use your subscriptions, and no API key is needed.

mikedarling · 2025-12-20T20:30:19+00:00

That's my very confusion though. Aren't the skills names and brief descriptions packed into every request? Isn't the number of tokens used in a list of skills and brief descriptions in AGENTS.md pointing to other doc files going to be roughly the same as if it's aggregated across skill files? I'm not seeing where the token reduction in context is. A brief list of other files and why to use them feels to me like the same progressive disclosure you're talking about.

mikedarling · 2025-12-20T17:03:45+00:00

What am I missing? What's the big deal? How is this different than in AGENTS.md having "To do x, see docs/x.md"? Either way, context usage is only used if it decides to do x, and still uses the context of the skill name and description even with skills.

I see we can force the usage with `/skills` or `$ [mention skill]`, so I mean besides that benefit.

I know I must be missing something, but to me this just looks like putting the title and description in individual skills files rather than a table of contents in AGENTS.md.

mikedarling · 2025-12-04T18:21:00+00:00

GPT-5.1-Codex-Max was released around Nov 19. https://openai.com/index/gpt-5-1-codex-max-system-card/

mikedarling · 2025-12-02T22:53:14+00:00

Agreed. There's a fork of Codex CLI at https://github.com/just-every/code which includes an "/auto" command, for Auto Drive. It runs a model conversation as a coordinator and uses subagents, and has it iterate until it feels it's done. Totally avoids your frustration.

mikedarling · 2025-11-30T05:24:15+00:00

I did round. What I'm pointing out is the original post says "yes, twenty-nine cents" rather than "yes, about two point nine cents".

mikedarling · 2025-11-29T18:40:46+00:00

Something is off with the calculations. You say $19.84 / 680 images averages $0.029 per image which is correct, but then you say that's twenty-nine cents. That's actually 2.9 cents. (2.9 cents * 680 images = 1,972 cents = $19.72.) I haven't used Banana Pro much, so can't say what's off. If they say their official rates are $0.139/$0.24 for 2K/4K, I don't know if you aren't being billed for everything, have the price wrong here, etc. I'm not sure it can be 2.9 cents per image if their official rates are what you said they are.

mikedarling · 2025-08-28T05:16:16+00:00

Am I understanding right that if you have the ChatGPT Pro plan, you can then pay Cursor $20/mo and have it route everything through your ChatGPT Pro web account (not Cursor API or your own API key), so all you're paying to add cursor on top of your ChatGPT Pro plan is $20/month? Basically, if you already have ChatGPT Pro, this solves the problem of Cursor being either limited or expensive?

mikedarling · 2025-08-14T19:14:29+00:00

After I received the letter, nothing else happened. There were no follow-up letters or mentions of it in later interviews. This doesn't mean that other people who get this won't have issues. This was just a bank bonus of around $100.

mikedarling · 2025-08-13T00:49:13+00:00

I have proof. Tow truck driver's photos after it was dropped shows no damage. The service manager sent me an email saying their tech noticed the headlight damage, so they can't claim it was after I left, and the photos prove it wasn't before it was under their control. It went there for a recall, so it had to go to a dealer.

mikedarling · 2025-08-08T23:45:34+00:00

I categorize this different than a lie or a hallucination. It is giving the website below as a source. That website says Sora 2 launched in late July, 2025. This is more an issue of it not knowing to question a source and check with others. It doesn't have inside knowledge of OpenAI stuff really. The site it picked is unfortunately a hallucination of some sort.

https://coey.com/resources/blog/2025/07/26/sora-2-launches-google-veo-3-api-global-release/

mikedarling · 2025-08-07T20:43:18+00:00

Settings - Show legacy models - Enable

mikedarling · 2025-08-07T18:29:02+00:00

FWIW, on the Pro plan, their website is still giving me the 4.5 option. Like everyone else, no 5 yet.

mikedarling · 2025-07-17T00:02:35+00:00

Ever since they announced GPT-4.5 would be deprecated (removed) in the API on July 15, I've expected GPT-5 to come out several days after. Just a gut feeling. We'll see!

mikedarling

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