Plan mode: add “Export plan to Markdown” option
Open 💬 11 comments Opened Feb 3, 2026 by J3m5
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What variant of Codex are you using?
CLI
What feature would you like to see?
In Plan mode, once the plan is generated, I’d like an easy “Export plan” option that writes it to a Markdown file. I often want to save the plan for reference or share it, and doing it manually today means extra steps (and sometimes extra tokens).
Additional information
I can ask Codex to output the plan again and then write it to a file, but it’s not as simple as selecting an option and can consume extra tokens.
I also tried prompting (in plan mode) to print the plan beforehand, but plan mode can’t modify files, so exporting requires switching modes or invoking a skill.
A skill could work, but I don’t always want to export the plan and invoking it manually is the same as doing it manually, but it's just a little shorter
11 Comments
Have you tried asking codex to do that? You could also create a skill that you can invoke if you do this regularly.
Yes, I forgot to mention that, that's what I do, but it's not as simple as selecting an option and it could consume more tokens.
Using a skill for that may be an option, but I don't always want to export the plan.
You can invoke a skill on demand when you want to export the plan.
I also tried instructing Codex to print the map beforehand, in the plan prompt while in plan mode, but it didn't work because it can't modify files.
So we have to switch modes, then launch the prompt or use a skill to do it.
That would be a welcome improvement, but I understand that it is not a priority. I just wanted to get the discussion started.
Currently, I use Shift+Tab and instruct the .md file to create. In Plan mode, I was unsuccessful with the direct instruction to create the .md.
So yes, a third option would be great: remain in Plan mode, implement, export the plan to an md file (name and path entered via note).
@etraut-openai yes I have, many times - in fact my plan starts off with
I want you to ONLY write the final plan we discuss to PLAN.md and that IS the final implementation for this planand when it prompts meImplement this plan noworCancel and stay in plan mode- selectingImplement..quite literally begins implementing it.The only thing that works is: pick
Stay in plan modethen manually exit plan mode, then ask it to save the plan verbatim to disk.We really need a third option
Save plan do diskThe bigger problem is that the plan is written in the message session and captured with xml tags it seems
There’s no way to reference old plans except digging through old sessions
I spent two hours making a plan and then let it build
After multiple compactions it no longer found the plan
I started a codex resume later and still couldn’t find
Had to go through session logs to eventually get it back
A generic solution is coming: https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/11333#issuecomment-3881321542
Related: #12878 — a
plansDirectoryconfig setting to control where plans are saved.There's now a
/copycommandSomehow copy command doesn't copy the plan itself but only what it said before the plan