Codex Skills: Baking Your Workflow Into the Tool

Skills are the part of my workflow that turned repeated prompts into repeatable outcomes. Instead of re‑explaining the same steps, I encode the workflow once and reuse it. That keeps my day consistent, faster, and less error‑prone — especially when the work is repetitive or procedural.

Heading: What I Actually Use Skills For

Most of my skills are local, day‑to‑day — things that used to be manual or a wall of prompts. Two big buckets:

1) Jira — From a few details to a real ticket

I give a short description and maybe a doc link. The skill:

- Uses a ticket description template.

- Sets the fields we care about.

- Creates the ticket and attaches it to the right board.

2) Git — Housekeeping as a single flow

Housekeeping is a chain of small steps. I turned them into small skills and then one combined skill that runs the full flow:

- New branch: create from the right base with naming convention.

- Update from origin: stash → pull → re‑apply stash → resolve conflicts if needed.

- Commit: generate a commit message from my template.

- Push: push branch and set upstream if needed.

Heading: The Template That Keeps Skills Consistent

As I created more skills, consistency mattered. I now use a simple template to keep every skill readable and reliable:

- Goal

- Inputs

- Outputs

- Workflow

- Constraints

- Example triggers

- References/scripts guidance (keep SKILL.md lean)

This structure is small, but it prevents the common failure modes: missing steps, unclear inputs, unsafe actions, or bloated context.

Here’s the template (shortened):

---

name: my-skill-name

description: [One sentence: what it does and when to use it.]

---



# My Skill Name



## Goal

[What this skill achieves.]



## Inputs

- [What the user provides.]



## Outputs

- [What must be true when done.]



## Workflow

1. [Step one]

2. [Step two]



## Constraints

- [Rules or things to avoid.]



## Example triggers

- "Create a Jira for …"

And here’s a small example:

---

name: git-update-branch

description: Update my branch from origin/main with stashing and rebase.

---



# Update Branch From Origin



## Goal

Rebase the current branch onto the latest origin/main while preserving local changes.



## Workflow

1. git fetch origin

2. git stash push -u -m "pre-rebase"

3. git rebase origin/main

4. git stash pop

Heading: Public Starter Repo (Templates + Examples)

I published a small, generic repo with:

- A full skill template

- A minimal “lite” template

- A few example skills (Git, Jira, safe infra checks)

Repo: skills-example

Heading: How Skills Work (Without Slowing You Down)

Skills use progressive disclosure:

- Startup: Codex loads only names and descriptions.

- On demand: When you invoke a skill, it loads the SKILL.md.

So you can have many skills without bloating context.

Heading: Take the Long View

Useful skills don’t have to be perfect on day one. Start with one painful workflow, write a first version, then refine it after real use. That’s how the small template turns into real leverage.