Codex Review via Tmux

Overview

Launch OpenAI’s Codex CLI in a tmux session and run the /review command to get a code review of uncommitted changes. The skill handles the full lifecycle: setup, command execution, waiting for completion (up to 60 minutes), capturing output, and cleanup.

Prerequisites

Before running, verify:

• tmux is installed and available
• codex CLI is installed and available

The Process

Step 1: Setup Tmux Session

SOCKET="${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/codex-review-$$.sock"
SESSION="codex-review-$$"
tmux -S "$SOCKET" new-session -d -s "$SESSION"

Step 2: Launch Codex and Send Commands

# Launch codex
tmux -S "$SOCKET" send-keys -t "$SESSION" "codex" Enter

# Wait for codex to initialize
sleep 5

# Type /review command
tmux -S "$SOCKET" send-keys -t "$SESSION" -l "/review"

# Press Enter to execute the /review command
tmux -S "$SOCKET" send-keys -t "$SESSION" Enter

# Wait for menu to appear
sleep 2

# Select option 2: Review uncommitted changes (no Enter needed)
tmux -S "$SOCKET" send-keys -t "$SESSION" -l "2"

Step 3: Wait for Completion

Poll every 60 seconds for up to 60 minutes:

wait_for_completion() {
  local timeout=3600 interval=60 elapsed=0
  while [ $elapsed -lt $timeout ]; do
    output=$(tmux -S "$SOCKET" capture-pane -p -t "$SESSION" -S -100)

    # Check for completion (shell prompt returned)
    if echo "$output" | grep -qE '(❯|\$|>>>)\s*$'; then
      return 0
    fi

    sleep $interval
    elapsed=$((elapsed + interval))
  done
  return 1
}

wait_for_completion

Step 4: Capture Output

# Capture full pane output (last 500 lines)
tmux -S "$SOCKET" capture-pane -p -t "$SESSION" -S -500

Step 5: Cleanup

tmux -S "$SOCKET" kill-session -t "$SESSION"
rm -f "$SOCKET"

To Monitor Manually

If you want to watch the session while it runs:

tmux -S "$SOCKET" attach -t "$SESSION"

Detach with Ctrl+b d.

Success Criteria

• Codex review output is captured and displayed
• Tmux session is cleaned up
• No orphaned processes or sockets