Codex Chef

Codex Chef is an unofficial community starter, not an OpenAI product. Its Codex guidance is based on official Codex documentation and is checked against the repository's current contracts. It supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and WSL, and keeps destructive, credentialed, database, publishing, deployment, and broad-filesystem actions behind explicit approval.

There are six README entry points for orientation. English and Turkish deep docs contain the complete operator guidance; the other language pages are concise, human-written routes into those canonical guides.

Start With A Preview

Check the local prerequisites first:

Get-Command git
Get-Command node
Get-Command npx
Get-Command codex
node -v

Node.js 18 or newer is required. If a command is missing, start with Troubleshooting.

Clone and preview without changing your Codex home:

git clone https://github.com/ucsahinn/codex-chef.git
cd codex-chef
npm run chef -- --install

Install only after the preview looks right:

npm run chef -- --install --apply

macOS, Linux, or WSL:

git clone https://github.com/ucsahinn/codex-chef.git
cd codex-chef
npm run chef -- --install
npm run chef -- --install --apply

The installer backs up managed targets before replacement. Normal install and repair do not prune user-owned skills, MCPs, profiles, or unrelated plugin files. The colorful CLI is the recommended public entry point. Advanced/manual automation can call scripts\install.ps1 on Windows or scripts/install.sh on Bash systems; the manifest-backed operation contract is available through node scripts/plan-install.mjs --all --json --redact-paths.

Use The CLI Without Guessing

Run npm run chef for the numbered command center.

Need Command
Fast repository health npm run chef -- --status --repo-only --no-log
Full status board npm run codex:status
Install preview npm run chef -- --preview
Routing map npm run chef -- --routing --profile starter-health
Diagnostics npm run chef -- --diagnostics --no-log
Process audit npm run chef -- --processes
Repair managed files npm run chef -- --repair, then npm run chef -- --repair --apply
Update preview npm run chef -- --update --plain --no-log
Update and verify npm run chef -- --update --apply

Inspection commands stay read-only. Write-capable commands require --apply or an action-specific typed confirmation. Use --no-log when you do not want the CLI to create its normal redacted, repo-local diagnostic record.

Detailed CLI behavior lives in Installation, Expected output, and Troubleshooting.

What Lands On Your Machine

Surface What you get
Agents 21 named specialist role files. They are available for bounded delegation, not always-running background services.
Skills Six bundled plugin workflows, including the project-scoped Codex Chef Brain, and sixteen reviewed optional global skills. Skills load when the task matches; they do not execute by themselves.
MCPs Eight useful defaults for official docs, current library docs, reasoning, browser evidence, semantic navigation, memory reads, and local codebase graph reads through codebase-memory. Eight account, database, production, and broad-filesystem connectors stay off.
Guidance A durable ~/.codex/AGENTS.md, routing profiles, approval rules, and token-safe profile choices that do not pin every agent to one model.
Safety Dry runs, manifest-backed install plans, backup-first replacement, secret scanning, package-surface checks, and runtime verification.

Installed skills do not execute by themselves; Codex loads them when a request matches their description or the user names one. Agent role selection is automatic, but spawning is conditional: delegation is reserved for independent parallel work, noisy research isolation, or an explicit user request.

What It Deliberately Does Not Do

  • It does not store secrets, import browser sessions, copy private memories, or send telemetry to a maintainer service.
  • It does not enable GitHub, Figma, Linear, Notion, Sentry, Vercel, Supabase, or broad filesystem access by default.
  • It does not commit, push, tag, release, deploy, publish packages, rotate credentials, or change GitHub settings.
  • It does not delete user data to make validation pass.

See The Workflow

Trust Signals

  • npm run check validates docs, installers, agents, MCPs, skills, routing, package contents, release metadata, supply-chain indicators, and security boundaries.
  • CI covers the Windows installer, Ubuntu with Node.js 18, and macOS with Node.js 24.
  • manifests/install-plan.json describes the managed write surface before an installer runs.
  • Authenticated and high-risk connectors remain opt-in.
  • The repository is private: true in npm metadata, so this source-first project cannot be published to npm by accident.

Verify locally:

npm run check
npm run token:audit
npm run verify:skills:online
git diff --check
gitleaks detect --redact --no-banner --no-git --verbose

For long or repository-wide sessions, npm run token:audit shows which context surfaces carry the most weight. The optional token-safe.config.toml profile lowers verbosity and tool-output limits without disabling agents, skills, MCPs, memory, hooks, or apps. Agent roles do not pin a model; automatic model/reasoning selection follows the active user profile.

Documentation

Contributing And Support

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a change and SUPPORT.md before sharing diagnostics. Security reports belong in the private route described by SECURITY.md.

MIT licensed. Community maintained.