Creating a skill + automation does not trigger immediate execution

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Feb 20, 2026 by twentyOne2x Closed Feb 21, 2026

Summary

Codex did not reliably complete an explicitly ordered, high-autonomy workflow end-to-end in one run:

  1. create/update a custom skill,
  2. create/update an automation that uses that skill,
  3. start execution immediately in the current session.

Expected Behavior

  • When the user gives an explicit sequence (setup first, then execute now), Codex should:
  • complete all setup steps,
  • validate setup artifacts,
  • immediately start execution without requiring additional prompts.

Actual Behavior

  • The setup was only partially usable after the first pass.
  • Extra follow-up prompts were required before behavior matched intent.
  • In this case, custom skill discoverability/autocomplete did not work initially, which blocked the intended “create + run now” flow.

Core Product Gap

There appears to be a gap between:

  • successful artifact creation on disk, and
  • runtime readiness/activation (discoverability + immediate execution path).

For unattended workflows, this gap is critical because the user expects a single-prompt handoff.

Suggested Fixes

  • Add strict ordered-execution mode for prompts that clearly specify setup-then-run sequencing.
  • Add post-creation readiness checks for skill/automation flows (parse, registration, discoverability).
  • If readiness checks fail, auto-remediate in the same run or return an explicit blocking failure with a next action.
  • Add an option to execute newly created automation immediately (one-shot run), not only schedule it.

Environment

  • CLI/App version observed: codex-cli 0.104.0-alpha.1
  • OS: macOS 26.3 (Darwin 25.3.0 arm64)

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