Codex Skills Library is a public collection of reusable workflows for product development, research, academic writing, visual communication, and project operations. Each skill is an installable directory with focused instructions, optional helpers, declared requirements, and traceable provenance.

This is an independent, community-maintained project. It is not an official OpenAI project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI. The repository itself is the distribution: there is no separate website, GitHub Pages site, or plugin marketplace.

Install one skill

Codex includes the $skill-installer system skill. Give it the GitHub URL of an individual skill directory:

$skill-installer Install https://github.com/sidiangongyuan/codex-skills-library/tree/main/skills/research-evidence

Replace research-evidence with any name in the catalog. The installed skill will be available on the next turn. $skill-installer uses the skill directory configured for the current Codex environment.

Review the selected skill's SKILL.md, LICENSE, requirements, and provenance before installing it in a sensitive environment. See the single-skill installation details for private forks and command-line alternatives.

Install several skills

The repository installer supports selected or bulk installation and has no runtime dependencies outside the Python standard library. It defaults to the shared user-level directory $HOME/.agents/skills.

git clone https://github.com/sidiangongyuan/codex-skills-library.git
cd codex-skills-library
python scripts/install.py
python scripts/install.py --all --dry-run
python scripts/install.py --all

Running the installer without selection arguments only prints the catalog and usage. --all is always explicit. To install a smaller set:

python scripts/install.py \
  --skill experiment-planner \
  --skill research-evidence \
  --skill paper-section-playbook \
  --dry-run

python scripts/install.py \
  --skill experiment-planner \
  --skill research-evidence \
  --skill paper-section-playbook

Existing skill directories are skipped by default. Use --replace only after reviewing the dry run. Use --target <directory> to install elsewhere. The installation guide covers Windows paths, manual copying, legacy --codex-home compatibility, and troubleshooting.

Browse by goal

The table below is generated from skills.json. Requirements listed as “None” mean that the skill itself has no extra runtime dependency; the work it performs may still require task-specific tools or access.

Goal Skill Extra requirements Source
Research Ideation & Experiment Planning experiment-planner None adapter
Evidence & Search research-evidence Network access for literature lookupOptional paper-search MCP or RefChecker backends original
Evidence & Search search-first Network or repository search access third-party-adapted
UI/UX & Product Design ui-ux-pro-max Python 3 for the bundled design search scripts third-party-adapted
App Development & Release app-feature-craft None original
App Development & Release app-bug-forensics None original
App Development & Release app-release-readiness Target application's build and packaging toolchainGitHub CLI for GitHub publishing tasks original
Research Ideation & Experiment Planning grill-me None third-party-exact
Paper Writing paper-section-playbook None original
Paper Writing paper-refinement-skills None original
Review & Rebuttal paper-review-panel None original
Review & Rebuttal rebuttal-response-skills None third-party-adapted
Figures & Tables paper-framework-figure-studio-pro None adapter
Figures & Tables paper-visual-craft The plotting or LaTeX toolchain used by the source artifactPDF rendering tools for visual verification original
Paper Communication paper-share-html Browser automation for visual QAPDF extraction or rendering tools when the source is a PDFOptional Pillow for automated table-crop checks original
Operations & Release github-project-release GitGitHub CLI for remote repository operations original
Operations & Release codex-session-restore Python 3 for the bundled recovery scriptLocal access to the Codex Desktop data directory original

For example prompts, dependency notes, licenses, and pinned upstream revisions, open the generated full skill catalog. Attribution and source treatment are recorded in NOTICE.md.

Use a skill

Explicit invocation is the clearest way to make a workflow reproducible:

$app-bug-forensics Diagnose this intermittent provider timeout from the UI state through the request path. Report the root cause before changing code.

$experiment-planner Turn this idea into a pilot-first experiment matrix with a falsifiable claim, baselines, diagnostics, and a stop/go gate.

$paper-review-panel Review this draft as a top-conference panel. Separate fatal evidence gaps from issues that can be fixed with writing.

All included skills also allow implicit invocation: Codex may select one when its description closely matches the request. Explicit $skill-name invocation is preferable when a particular workflow or a repeatable handoff matters.

Skills can be composed in sequence. A research idea might move through $grill-me, $experiment-planner, and $research-evidence; a product release might use $app-feature-craft, $app-bug-forensics, and $app-release-readiness. See workflow recipes for complete examples.

Contribute

Contributions are welcome from any domain. A proposal issue is optional; a pull request may add a useful skill directly. New skills must include:

  • a focused SKILL.md with a matching lowercase kebab-case name;
  • an example prompt and complete requirements in skills.json;
  • an applicable license inside the installable skill directory;
  • original-work or pinned-upstream provenance; and
  • safe defaults for destructive, publishing, or externally visible actions.

Do not include credentials, private conversations, unpublished project material, machine-specific paths, datasets, checkpoints, or redistribution rights that are unclear. Read CONTRIBUTING.md for the template, validation commands, and review criteria.

License and safety

Original project material is licensed under the MIT License. Third-party material remains under its upstream license and copyright; every installable skill carries the license text that applies to it. See NOTICE.md for provenance labels and fixed source revisions.

Skills can influence tool use and may include executable helpers. The library installer only copies files and never executes installed helpers, but users should still inspect skills before granting them access to sensitive data, credentials, publishing surfaces, or destructive tools. Report security issues through the process in SECURITY.md.