Allow Run Now on an automation with one-time additional context
What variant of Codex are you using?
App
What feature would you like to see?
Add a way to run an existing automation ad-hoc with one-time additional context.
Today, if I have an automation that is mostly reusable but needs run-specific context, the workflow is awkward:
- Edit the automation prompt to include the temporary context.
- Run it, or paste the modified prompt into a new chat.
- Remove the temporary context afterward so the saved automation is not permanently changed.
This makes automations less useful as reusable workflows. The saved automation prompt is the stable procedure, but many real runs need a small amount of extra context, such as:
- “Run the release-review automation, but focus on this PR.”
- “Run the repo-maintenance automation, but include this error log.”
- “Run the weekly summary automation now, but also consider this incident.”
- “Run the code-review automation against this branch/commit/range.”
The ideal UX would be something like:
- A
Run Now...action that opens a short input field for optional run-specific context. - The automation starts a new run using:
- the saved automation prompt,
- plus the one-time context,
- without modifying the saved automation definition.
- The resulting thread should show both the base automation and the extra context used for that run.
This is different from editing the automation itself because the extra context should not persist. It is also different from just starting a normal chat because I want to reuse the automation’s configured prompt, project/worktree, model/settings, and any future automation-specific behavior.
Additional information
Related but not exact duplicates:
- #13925 - single-use / one-shot automations
- #17840 - Run Now not starting
- #18247 - automation permissions / heartbeat context discussion
- #16695 - per-automation sandbox/profile overrides
Those cover adjacent automation execution and context problems, but I could not find an issue specifically for “Run Now with temporary additional context.”
4 Comments
Automations are intended to be used for actions that are invoked automatically (e.g. when you're not present). If you want to define repeatable actions that can be performed on demand ("run now"), you might find that _skills_ are a better solution. You can define a skill like "release-review" and then invoke it using
$release-review PR #4255. I personally have a bunch of skills like this defined, and I use them all day long. It's easy to define a new skill using the skill-creator skill. Give it a try and let us know if that addresses your needs!I'm kind of already doing that, the automation calls a user-scoped skill with additional context for a specific project, like a research skill with a set of reference links. An edge case for me is I want to run that job ad-hoc with an additional link just for that run, without having to create a project-scoped skill in the project's .codex folder. An idea I had would be to just have a feature to add an automation prompt to the chat window like an attachment.
You probably already know this, but just in case... you can create global (user-level) skills, and you can invoke them from any project.
This feature request hasn't received enough upvotes, so it is being closed automatically. If you still feel this feature is needed, please open a new feature request with an updated title and description.