codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix Separate installed plugins from per-session skill metadata injection [1 comments, 2 participants]

What problem does this solve?

Codex currently treats enabled plugins/skills as part of the model-visible skills metadata surface for every new session. With several official plugins enabled, this can quickly hit the fixed skills metadata budget and produce warnings like:

Skill descriptions were shortened to fit the 2% skills context budget. Codex can still see every skill, but some descriptions are shorter. Disable unused skills or plugins to leave more room for the rest.

The current workaround is to disable plugins globally in config.toml, but that is not a clean workflow: a user may want a plugin installed and available for another session without paying its full skills metadata cost in every coding session.

Why this is not only a budget-size issue

Related issues already cover important parts of this:

• #19679 asks for the hardcoded 2% budget to be configurable.
• #19090 covers truncation effects in the injected Available skills metadata.
• #19957 covers long first-party plugin skill descriptions.

Those would help, but there is a separate product/control-surface issue: plugin installation/enabling is currently too tightly coupled to per-session prompt injection.

For example, a user may want these different modes:

• keep a document/PPT/spreadsheet plugin installed, but not inject its skills into every normal coding session;
• start a dedicated session with those plugin skills fully injected;
• keep Browser Use or Computer Use always available;
• avoid duplicate or near-duplicate skill metadata across plugin/local/project sources;
• prioritize repo-local skills over low-frequency plugin skills when metadata budget is tight.

Today the practical choice is mostly either keep everything enabled and accept truncation, or disable plugins globally and remember to re-enable them before a specialized session.

Requested behavior

Please consider separating plugin/skill availability from default per-session skills metadata injection. Possible designs:

• per-session or profile-based plugin sets, e.g. default, docs, browser, research;
• a config mode per plugin/skill such as inject = "always" | "on_demand" | "off" while keeping the plugin installed;
• lazy loading: inject a compact plugin/skill manifest first, then load detailed routing metadata only when the user invokes or references that capability;
• priority/pinning rules so repo-local or user-pinned skills are preserved before low-frequency plugin skills;
• automatic deduplication of identical or overlapping skill metadata across plugin/local/project roots before applying the budget;
• Codex App UI controls to start a new session with selected plugins instead of editing config.toml and restarting.

Expected result

Users should be able to keep official plugins installed without each one consuming skills metadata budget in every session. The default coding session stays compact, while specialized plugin-heavy sessions remain easy to start intentionally.

Environment

• Codex CLI: codex-cli 0.128.0
• Platform: macOS
• Scenario: multiple official plugins enabled via ~/.codex/config.toml, fresh session shows the 2% skills context budget warning.