Codex Autoresearch

Skill by ara.so — Daily 2026 Skills collection.

Codex Autoresearch is a Codex skill that runs an autonomous modify→verify→keep/revert loop on your codebase. You describe a measurable goal in one sentence; Codex confirms the plan, then iterates unattended — every improvement stacks in git, every failure reverts automatically — until interrupted or a cap is reached. Inspired by Karpathy's autoresearch concept, generalized beyond ML training to any software metric.

Installation

Option A — manual copy into your project:

git clone https://github.com/leo-lilinxiao/codex-autoresearch.git
cp -r codex-autoresearch your-project/.agents/skills/codex-autoresearch

Option B — Codex skill installer:

$skill-installer install https://github.com/leo-lilinxiao/codex-autoresearch

The skill lives at .agents/skills/codex-autoresearch/ inside your project. No config file is required before first use.

How to Activate

Open Codex in your project directory and prefix your goal with $codex-autoresearch:

$codex-autoresearch
I want to get rid of all `any` types in my TypeScript code

Codex will:

1. Scan the repo and infer scope, metric, verify command, and guard command.
2. Present a confirmation summary — reply go (or correct anything).
3. Run the loop unattended until you interrupt it or the goal is met.

You never write config. Codex infers everything.

Confirmation Flow

Before the loop starts Codex always shows what it found and asks you to confirm. Example exchange:

Codex: I found 47 `any` occurrences across src/**/*.ts.

       Confirmed:
       - Target: eliminate `any` types in src/**/*.ts
       - Metric: `any` count (current: 47), direction: lower
       - Verify: grep + tsc --noEmit as guard

       Need to confirm:
       - Run until all gone, or cap at N iterations?

       Reply "go" to start, or tell me what to change.

You:   Go, run overnight.

Codex: Starting — baseline: 47. Iterating until interrupted.

Up to five confirmation rounds are possible. After that, Codex proceeds.

The Loop (internals)

PHASE 0: Probe environment (CPU/GPU/RAM/toolchains), check for session resume
PHASE 1: Read context + lessons file from prior run (if any)