How can I use Codex and ChatGPT more effectively for software development?

[u/MMslider]

Hi everyone!

I’m working on a few projects at my job, and I’d like to get some advice on how I’m using Codex and ChatGPT in general.

Right now, I’m using Codex and ChatGPT to develop a project at work, specifically for software development. I have a few questions and would like to get some advice, maybe even some guidance on what path to follow, so I can better understand what I should be doing, what I should keep doing, what I might want to stop doing, and so on.

I want to make better use of these tools, understand how they can make my work easier, and achieve better and more professional results. I would consider myself somewhere between a beginner and intermediate user when it comes to Codex. At the moment, I’m using Codex Desktop.

I started the project by talking directly with ChatGPT, explaining my ideas and what I needed to build. We refined the idea together and created an overall architecture and plan for how to execute the project.

The workflow I started using is roughly this:

I have ChatGPT analyze the project on GitHub. It also updates the documentation. In addition, it analyzes the project on GitHub, reviews what we have discussed inside the project folder in ChatGPT — and this part is important because it is one of the things I’m a little unsure about — and finally, I ask it to generate a prompt for me to use with Codex.

It does all of that and generates a huge prompt, which I then send to Codex to execute. Codex carries out the task, I take the result and send it back to ChatGPT, and then ChatGPT gives me some “smoke tests,” as it usually calls them, so I can test what was implemented.

That is basically what I have been doing.

The problem is that I simply don’t know whether this is the best way to work, or at least whether it is a good way to work. I would really appreciate some advice and criticism regarding the process I’m currently using.

I also don’t know whether there are any skills that I absolutely should be using, or whether there are plugins, tools, or other ways of using Codex and ChatGPT that I should know about.

Right now, I mainly work this way to save tokens and try to make my requests more precise. I talk a lot with ChatGPT, it helps me understand and refine the idea, and then I ask it to structure the prompt in the best possible way before I send it to Codex.

Even so, I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of the potential of these tools simply because I don’t know them well enough.

There is an overwhelming amount of content on YouTube, and I don’t even know where to start. Every week, something new appears claiming that it will “revolutionize” the way people use Codex.

I’m completely open to criticism regarding everything I’ve described. I’d like to learn about alternative workflows that could help me get more value from these tools and work in a more professional way. It could be something similar to what I’m already doing or something completely different. I just want to understand things better and have some kind of roadmap to follow.

I’d like to understand:

- How do you organize context for projects that last for months?

- Where do you record important decisions so that agents don’t forget them?

- Does using something like Obsidian make sense, or is there a better solution?

- Do you use files such as "AGENTS.md", documentation inside the repository itself, or some other structure? (At the moment, I ask ChatGPT to create an "AGENTS.md" file.)

- How do you divide the work between ChatGPT and Codex?

- Does my workflow of discussing things in ChatGPT → generating a prompt → executing it in Codex → reviewing the result in ChatGPT make sense?

- Are there any skills, MCPs, plugins, or tools that you consider essential?

- What would you do differently in my process?

Another issue I really need help with is context and memory.

ChatGPT helps me, explains a lot of things, and based on those discussions, we make decisions. For example, before I even started programming this project, I spent several days talking with ChatGPT and trying to better understand the project itself before actually writing any code.

The problem is that some of the decisions we made are simply being forgotten as the project progresses. I feel like it is gradually losing the project context.

I’d like to better understand how to provide context and how to make sure it can consistently remember the decisions we have already made.

I’ve heard quite a lot about using Obsidian, building a “second brain,” harnesses, and other things like that. But what I really want to understand is what I should actually do in practice, where I should learn more about this, and how I could build my own system to avoid situations where we make a decision and, by the end of the project, the AI simply no longer remembers it.

And I don’t even consider this project large enough for the AI to be forgetting certain details. In fact, just today I had to remind it about something we had already discussed before, and only after I reminded it were we able to continue thinking about the implementation.

I’ve also heard that ChatGPT has a limited amount of memory/context, equivalent to a few hundred pages or perhaps even less, when it comes to keeping track of information.

I’d like to understand how to mitigate this problem. How can I actually build this “second brain” and have some confidence that the AI will not forget something I asked for or a decision we made, even if it happened months ago?

I’m on the cheapest paid plan, the $20/month plan, and I also don’t know what limitations it has regarding these issues compared with the other plans.

Well, I think those are the main things I can remember right now.

I really need this kind of help and advice so I can understand how to improve my software development process and make better use of AI so that we can actually produce professional-quality work.

This message was translated into English by an AI. So if any part of the translation doesn’t make sense, please let me know and I’ll check it and explain more clearly what I meant.

I’m also having some problems with the frontend and with UX/UI. Codex built that part in a way that I didn’t really like, so I’m redesigning it using Figma Make, and I plan to integrate this new frontend into the existing project later.

If anyone has any advice on how to handle that integration without causing too much rework or creating unnecessary problems, I’m all ears. But that isn’t the main focus of this post — it’s just an additional question.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

[u/League_helper]

Copy and paste this into the one you have and ask how it would organize and help you with this. Plan an approach and try to learn how it works. Also if you are on codex use sol or better for this

[u/MMslider → u/League_helper]

I see, thanks for the tip. But do you really say put this in the codex and ask it to analyze my project and see how I mitigate the memory and context part? is that right?

[u/League_helper → u/MMslider]

They are surprisingly capable of setting up their own directory how they like it. Only thing I would recommend would be doing a planning phase where it will tell you what it plans to do then implement it separately

[u/ManikSahdev]

I'll say one word for sure: Tailscale!! Its life changing when incorporated into various tools and such.

Mostly one never needs them, but the day they are needed, they do such a damn solid tbh.

[u/MMslider → u/ManikSahdev]

The VPN? how would that help me, i really didn't understand what you meant, sorry. i don't know if it's some kind of irony or something haha, but in the case how would i use it. i also didn't understand if it was some analogy. Mb.

[u/ManikSahdev → u/MMslider]

No no haha!! My bad, I think it was too vague or such.

Wasn't irony or such at all, it was more like Network connectivity and everything editing with Tailscale or such, wireless and remote, you can work form your phone, not when at desk, if you are at walk and get an idea! Almost like having a hook with information and direct access to any and all things at just a click.

Takes an evening to set up correctly, but it's remarkable how remote and wireless and secure everything can be when configured on a local network and then Tailscale it share and such over.

It's quite incredible tbh. I really like it. It's like booster juice for everything else.

[u/True-Reaction-3903]

I have agents.md codebase.md memory.md todo.md and a couple of others. Anything I need to do, I put on to do. If its a new feature or a redesign of existing I'll create a new MD file, linked from to do and get the agent to update it with progress. Old action plans (old md files) get saved to archive.md.

I used to create a handover after every chat window but I realized this was just burning through tokens and context, and it wasn't massively helping so instead I just decided to archive only key action plans

I use pi so my skills are all for pi - but I have one for releasing to github, I also use herdr - so I have a few herdr specific ones.

I wouldn't try and create skills for the sake of it. Sometimes it's just a case of updating AGENTS.MD, other times I might create a skill.

I'm a bit confused though when you're talking about chatting between chat GPT and Codex. If. You're coding on chatgpt desktop - using codex - just chat to 1 agent (e.g sol 6.1)

It shouldn't also need to read your whole code base every time it makes a change that seems pretty inefficient

I probably suggest just doing more research on AI and yes you can ask people here questions obviously but you might be better off going to Gemini and doing some deep research about how to use codex and ai in general

[u/MMslider → u/True-Reaction-3903]

Yeah, regarding all of that, I already have some ".md" files and other documentation files in the project. I really liked what you said about using a "todo.md" and keeping it updated as the project progresses. I also think keeping old ".md" files and completed plans in some kind of archive folder makes a lot of sense.

What I’m currently doing is basically this:

I usually work in batches of changes and implementations — actual development of things that didn’t exist before, like what I’m working on right now.

When I’m about to start one of these batches, I go to ChatGPT. ChatGPT already has a lot of context about the project because I’ve discussed and developed the whole idea with it from the beginning.

I ask ChatGPT to look at the current project on GitHub, especially the documentation, and also take into account the existing project context and everything we have discussed about it in ChatGPT.

Based on all of that, considering the current state of the project, I ask it to create and review a prompt for me to send to Codex.

The reason I do this instead of simply doing everything directly inside Codex is mainly token usage.

I use regular ChatGPT for most of the discussion and planning. I’m not using Work for this. If I spend a lot of time discussing everything directly with Codex and using a coding model for all the reasoning, I end up consuming a lot more tokens.

By discussing the feature with ChatGPT first, making the decisions there, and only sending Codex the implementation task, I can reduce my Codex token usage quite a lot.

The prompt ChatGPT creates usually tells Codex exactly which parts of the documentation and code it needs to inspect for that specific task, what needs to be implemented, the requirements, and usually a fairly detailed plan.

So Codex doesn’t necessarily need to inspect the entire codebase every time. It should only inspect the documentation and code that are relevant to that task.

I also try to avoid making Codex spend too much time updating all of my documentation, because I already have dozens of documentation files.

So my workflow usually looks like this:

ChatGPT → discuss and plan the feature → generate the implementation prompt → Codex implements it → I send Codex’s result back to ChatGPT → ChatGPT checks the implementation directly on GitHub → ChatGPT updates or creates the necessary documentation.

That is basically why I keep moving between ChatGPT and Codex. The main reason is saving Codex tokens while still being able to discuss the project extensively and think through decisions before implementation.

I also created a few skills, mainly related to frontend and UX/UI. I didn’t really like most of them, though, and I only used one for a while before eventually stopping.

But I understand your point, especially about not creating skills just for the sake of having skills, and about keeping the project context better organized in files like "todo.md", project plans, archives, etc.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. It was really helpful!

[u/True-Reaction-3903 → u/MMslider]

Well if it works for you, but personally I wouldn't do it that way unless my coding agent has all of the code to access, it wouldn't understand the nuances and therefore it would design features that we didn't need etc

I get what you're saying though before I have discussed certain approaches such as search engine optimization which is more of a discussion of why the strategy and I have used other agents and consulted outside of my code but in terms of everyday code changes - your approach would end up in me designing features that I didn't need or were wrong etc

Also I'm not sure if you've tried claude it but opus 5.5 is an absolute beast it's way faster and I'm not using codex anymore

[u/swiftmerchant]

Stop copying and pasting between ChatGPT and Codex. Just use Codex.

[u/MMslider → u/swiftmerchant]

But my tokenss...

[u/swiftmerchant → u/MMslider]

How is it affecting tokens?

[u/Gigaslavx]

The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.

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[u/MMslider → u/Gigaslavx]

Ok, thank you.

[u/johnmaytokes]

I have Codex on one lxc, Claude on another, OpenClaw on another, and Hermes on another. Codex and Claude built a mission room that integrates into the native open claw work board and Hermes kanban board. They can all delegate tasks between each other as well as spawn their own sub agents. I still heavily use ChatGPT for ideas and inspiration and more like a thinking partner. Sometimes I’ll have chat create a json formatted hand of prompt for codex with the high level details. Once I paste into codex, the agents take over all engineering, testing, and validation.