Orchestrate Persistent Multi-Agent Workflows

Use this skill to create workflows, inspect workflows, and send control messages to the background codex-deck-flow daemon.

This skill is an operator control client, not the long-running orchestrator. After the daemon has started successfully and a control message has been sent successfully, the skill should stop.

Detailed operational guidance is routed through references/*.md:

• Command sequences and syntax: references/commands.md
• Workflow/task authoring rules: references/authoring.md
• Failure recovery runbooks: references/runbooks.md
• Scheduler vs workflow-task guidance placement: references/guidance-routing.md
• Architecture, contracts, and role prompts: references/agent-flow-design.md
• Scheduler mutation heuristics (scheduler task only): references/scheduler.md

Mandatory activation contract

• If the user explicitly mentions $codex-deck-flow or codex-deck-flow, treat that as a strict instruction to use this workflow system.
• Do not switch to direct ad-hoc coding as the primary path while that request is active.
• In the first response after activation, say that codex-deck-flow orchestration is active and state the first command you are running.
• If the user gives project root plus workflow ID for a workflow that the current session has not created, loaded, or already resolved, first run resolve-workflow, then continue with validate, reconcile, and status.
• If the current session already knows the workflow path from create, a previous resolve-workflow, or earlier inspection in the same chat, reuse that path instead of resolving again.
• If the user already gave a workflow path, start with validate, then reconcile, then status.
• If no workflow exists yet, start with create, then immediately validate, then show or status, and present the authored tasks/prompts for user approval before trigger.
• If the user explicitly includes Strict task creating mode, keep the normal create/validate/show flow, but use the strict authoring protocol described below.
• Keep merge explicit. Never run merge --apply unless the user explicitly asked to apply the integration branch into the target branch.
• Once trigger or daemon-send succeeds, stop. Do not continue the same skill turn as if it were the orchestrator.

Strict task creating mode

When the user explicitly includes Strict task creating mode, treat that as a workflow-authoring protocol layered on top of the normal codex-deck-flow create flow.

Rules:

• Still run create, then validate, then show or status as usual.
• The draft workflow JSON already exists after create; approval still gates trigger, not draft creation.
• If you must ask the user a clarifying question before the workflow is ready, the assistant message must end with exactly:
  • <codex-deck-flow>Question<codex-deck-flow/>
• When asking the user to approve the authored workflow, the assistant message must end with exactly:
  • <codex-deck-flow>Request approve:workflow-file-name.json<codex-deck-flow/>
• Replace workflow-file-name.json with the JSON file name only, for example feature-delivery.json.
• Use only the file name token after Request approve:. Do not add brackets or extra wrappers.
• Do not put any additional text after the strict tag suffix.
• Once the user approves, exit strict task creating mode and continue with the normal codex-deck-flow flow.
• If the approval message includes workflow data for an already-created draft, reuse that workflow and do not run create again.
• The approval workflow data may include fields such as workflowPath, workflowFileName, workflowId, projectRoot, and boundSessionId; treat that as the canonical handoff for reusing the already-authored draft.

Core runtime model

• One workflow = one JSON file under ./.codex-deck/.
• The daemon is the orchestration owner and can serve workflows from multiple project roots.
• The skill starts daemon if needed, sends one control message, then stops.
• Worker tasks run in isolated git worktree directories.
• Scheduler continuity should use codex-deck-flow non-interactive app-server-backed resume behavior (scripts/codex_resume_noninteractive.py behavior model), not raw codex resume SESSION_ID semantics in daemon mode.

Use references/agent-flow-design.md for full runtime contracts and role data.

Route by intent

Use this decision route, then follow details in references/commands.md:

1. New workflow request: create -> validate -> show/status -> user approval -> trigger
2. Existing workflow by known path: validate -> reconcile -> status
3. Existing workflow by project root + workflow ID when path unknown in current session: resolve-workflow -> validate -> reconcile -> status
4. Explicit daemon control message: daemon-send or stop-workflow-processes
5. Merge request: merge preview, and merge --apply only if explicitly requested

Reference loading boundaries

• Scheduler task only: references/scheduler.md
• Scheduler/workflow-task guidance file rules and routing: references/guidance-routing.md
• Non-scheduler roles should not load scheduler-specific mutation guidance.

References

Canonical references:

• references/commands.md
• references/authoring.md
• references/runbooks.md
• references/guidance-routing.md
• references/agent-flow-design.md
• references/scheduler.md (scheduler task only)

Implementation scripts:

• scripts/workflow.py
• scripts/task_runner.py
• scripts/daemon.py
• scripts/daemon_client.py
• scripts/codex_resume_noninteractive.py
• scripts/session_state.py
• scripts/session_summary.py