Product Design Review: Improving Codex for Long-Term Software Engineering Projects

What variant of Codex are you using?

ChatGPT Desktop App (macOS, Business Workspace) with Codex Projects and Persistent Worktree features.

What feature would you like to see?

Improve Codex Project Workflow for Long-Term Software Engineering

Background

I have been using Codex to develop a real enterprise software project: Power Plant Project Collaboration Platform. Unlike short coding sessions or small demo applications, this is a long-term engineering project involving architecture design, UI/UX, Git workflows, documentation, and continuous iteration.

After only several hours of intensive use, I identified several workflow and UX issues. None of these are related to Codex’s coding capability, which is excellent. Instead, they are product design and workflow issues that significantly impact long-term development.

1. Existing Projects Cannot Be Converted into Persistent Worktrees

This is the biggest workflow issue.

A very common development process is:

Start coding

↓

Project grows

↓

Decide to continue long-term development

↓

Enable Persistent Worktree

Currently this is impossible.

Users are forced to create a new Persistent Worktree instead of upgrading the existing project, which breaks project continuity and creates confusion.

The expected workflow should be:

Existing Project

↓

Enable Persistent Worktree

↓

Continue Development

without creating another project.

⸻

1. Project / Conversation / Persistent Worktree Relationship Is Unclear

The current UI does not clearly explain the relationship between:

• Project
• Conversation
• Persistent Worktree

Projects and Conversations can even appear with nearly identical names, making it difficult to distinguish them.

A clearer hierarchy would significantly improve usability.

⸻

1. Missing Repository & Worktree Status

Once a Persistent Worktree is created, the UI does not clearly display:

• Attached repository
• Local folder
• Git branch
• Temporary vs Persistent status

These are essential pieces of information for software engineers.

⸻

1. Archived Conversations Are Difficult to Discover

Archived conversations are hidden deep inside the Settings interface.

Initially I believed important conversations had been permanently lost because there was no visible “Archived” section in the sidebar or search.

A dedicated Archived section or searchable archived conversations would greatly improve discoverability.

⸻

1. Projects Need Metadata

Projects should support:

• Description
• Project Instructions
• README
• Architecture Notes
• Coding Standards

Long-term software projects require persistent project-level context instead of repeating the same information in every conversation.

⸻

1. Naming and Information Architecture

Projects and Conversations often share nearly identical names and visual styles.

Users should be able to distinguish them immediately through clearer hierarchy, icons, labels, or grouping.

⸻

Overall Feedback

Codex has outstanding coding capability and enormous potential for professional software engineering.

The main opportunities for improvement are in workflow design, information architecture, and long-term project management rather than model performance.

Addressing these issues would make Codex significantly stronger for enterprise software development and large-scale engineering projects.

Additional information

_No response_