codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix Support skill filtering for project-local skills.config entries [3 comments, 4 participants]

What version of Codex is running?

codex-cli 0.125.0

Which platform / environment?

macOS, Codex CLI installed via npm (@openai/codex).

What happened?

Project-local .codex/config.toml is loaded for normal project configuration, but [[skills.config]] entries in that project config do not affect the model-visible skills list.

This makes it impossible to selectively disable globally installed skills for one repository while keeping them available in other repositories.

For example, this project-local config does not hide codebase-to-course:

# <repo>/.codex/config.toml
[[skills.config]]
name = "codebase-to-course"
enabled = false

Nor does the path selector variant:

# <repo>/.codex/config.toml
[[skills.config]]
path = "/Users/me/.codex/skills/codebase-to-course/SKILL.md"
enabled = false

Running:

codex debug prompt-input 'test skill visibility' | rg 'codebase-to-course'

still shows the skill in <skills_instructions>.

However, the same setting does work when provided from the user config or from session flags:

codex debug prompt-input \
  -c 'skills.config=[{name="codebase-to-course", enabled=false}]' \
  'test skill visibility' | rg 'codebase-to-course'

In that case, the skill is absent from the generated prompt input.

Expected behavior

For a trusted project, [[skills.config]] in <repo>/.codex/config.toml should be able to enable or disable specific skills for that project only, using the same selectors that work in ~/.codex/config.toml and -c.

This would allow a common workflow:

• Keep useful skills globally installed and available by default.
• Disable unrelated/heavy skills in specific repositories.
• Avoid disabling those skills globally for all other projects.

Actual behavior

Project-local [[skills.config]] entries are ignored for skill filtering. Globally installed skills remain visible in that project.

As a partial workaround, this project-local config does work:

[skills]
include_instructions = false

but that disables the entire skill instruction block, rather than selectively disabling a few skills.

Possible cause

From a quick source read, project config itself appears to be loaded, and project-local skills are also treated as skill roots.

But skill_config_rules_from_stack() currently only reads skills.config rules from ConfigLayerSource::User and ConfigLayerSource::SessionFlags, skipping ConfigLayerSource::Project:

if !matches!(
    layer.name,
    ConfigLayerSource::User { .. } | ConfigLayerSource::SessionFlags
) {
    continue;
}

This seems to explain the behavior:

• ~/.codex/config.toml works because it is a User layer.
• -c 'skills.config=...' works because it is a SessionFlags layer.
• <repo>/.codex/config.toml does not work because it is a Project layer.

Why this matters

The docs describe project-local configuration as a configuration layer, and the skills docs describe skills.config as the mechanism for enabling/disabling skills. Users naturally expect those two features to compose.

Selective project-level skill filtering is useful for keeping prompts smaller and avoiding irrelevant automatic skill triggers without losing globally installed skills in other repositories.