Codex

Add Serpentine instructions to your Codex project context via AGENTS.md.

Serpentine integrates with OpenAI Codex via AGENTS.md. Running serpentine init appends a ## Serpentine section that instructs Codex to use Serpentine’s CLI for structural orientation instead of reading files or grepping.

Setup

In any project you want to instrument:

serpentine init

Codex is detected automatically if an AGENTS.md file is already present. You can also target it explicitly:

serpentine init --harness codex

What gets installed

AGENTS.md

If AGENTS.md already exists, serpentine init appends a ## Serpentine section to it. If it doesn’t exist, the file is created with just the Serpentine section. The section instructs Codex to use three commands:

  1. serpentine stats . — get the module list and scale
  2. serpentine catalog . --filter "*<topic>*" — find nodes relevant to the task
  3. serpentine analyze . --select "*.Symbol" --source — read source and edges

Codex reads AGENTS.md automatically for project context, so no per-session configuration is needed.

Updating

After upgrading Serpentine, remove the existing ## Serpentine section from AGENTS.md and re-run serpentine init to write the updated instructions.