Build an advanced workflow without losing control

Understand the approach

Advanced features are useful when they solve a specific coordination problem. Planning helps resolve consequential choices before edits. Reasoning controls can give a difficult investigation more effort. Permission settings define execution boundaries and review. Non-interactive runs make a bounded workflow scriptable. Scheduling decides when a stable workflow starts. None of these alone defines what the user needs or proves the result works.

The source overview groups many Claude capabilities together. Codex offers related workflows, but commands, execution surfaces, and availability are different. This module follows the same seven source topics and teaches the Codex mechanism for each, with explicit differences. Keep app, CLI, IDE, and cloud-hosted work separate: a local path, browser sign-in, or running process is not automatically available in another environment.

Choose one outcome and map each feature to a real need. A two-file documentation correction may need only ordinary local editing and a link check. A broad refactor may need a plan, a versioned checkpoint, scoped changes, and multiple verification stages. Increasing effort or running more agents cannot compensate for unclear requirements. A good advanced workflow has visible evidence and a stopping condition, not just more automation.

A worked feature decision

The missing-checks review already has fixed input and a deterministic answer. Start by running the local tool and evidence validator; a scheduler or more reasoning adds little to that single task. The proposed missing-both extension introduces a design choice about accepted inputs, so a short plan is useful. A future repeated report might justify a headless command only after its output contract is stable. Each feature earns its place by solving a concrete problem.

A complete advanced outcome

The extension task is implemented and graded through actual files and a real stdio server, with a readable reference change. The native tracks then teach the client controls needed to run the same work. Their account-dependent steps remain available to the learner even where the course author did not execute a model session or schedule.

Try it step by step

1. Run the deterministic fixture review and real stdio demo to establish the current bounded workflow.
2. Generate a practice package and use its missing-both extension as the concrete multi-file task.
3. Choose Plan mode when the file/schema/version coordination needs inspection; implement against the actual grader and review the diff.
4. Select one needed advanced track: a controlled effort comparison, explicit permission observation, structured headless review, or scheduling a manually verified workflow.
5. Save real outputs and failure states for the chosen track. Do not schedule an unstable workflow or infer model quality from synthetic candidate files.

A useful starting example

Illustration · adapt before use.

Review the bundled missing-checks fixture using labs/workflow-plugin.
Inspect the actual tool and expected-output contract first.
Trace input, discovery, review, evidence validation, and failure handling.
Explain whether this task needs planning, a reasoning experiment, or a headless run.
Keep current permissions and model. Do not install, create schedules, or connect external services.

Check your result

• The local exchange actually reaches a review call rather than stopping at discovery.
• The final artifact passes schema and fixture-evidence validation.
• The workflow has a bounded deliverable and does not silently change permissions, accounts, schedules, or connections.

Common mistakes

• Enabling every advanced feature before identifying the problem it should solve.
• Describing a plan, started process, or prepared schedule as a completed product.