dispatch

Move context between Claude Code and Codex CLI without losing your place.

You're deep into a session in one CLI and want a second opinion from the other. Or one model is stuck and you want to swap. Or you're done with a planning phase in one tool and want to execute it in the other. dispatch is the tiny piece of glue that makes that a single command instead of a copy-paste exercise.

dispatch fork codex          # continue this session in a new Codex pane
dispatch fork claude         # continue this session in a new Claude pane
/handoff codex               # let Claude write a brief and ship it to a fresh Codex session

How it works

• dispatch fork finds your current session by looking up the most recently modified .jsonl in the right place under ~/.claude/projects/ or ~/.codex/sessions/ for your current working directory. If you fork into the same tool, it delegates to the tool's native fork (claude --resume … --fork-session or codex fork …) so prior turns are preserved exactly. If you fork into the other tool, it snapshots the source .jsonl to ~/.dispatch/snapshots/ and starts the target with a tiny pointer prompt — the receiving model reads the snapshot for context as needed.

• dispatch handoff is the LLM-driven path. The installed handoff skill teaches Claude (or Codex) to write a curated four-section brief — Goal, State, Files, Ask — and ship it via dispatch handoff <target> - <<'BRIEF' … BRIEF. The receiver gets a fresh session with just the brief as context, no prior history. Use this when you want a clean restart with a clear handoff, not a full session continuation.

Both commands open the new session in a fresh tmux pane to the right (tmux split-window -h). Pass --replace to replace the current pane instead.

Requirements

• tmux — dispatch hard-fails outside tmux
• Claude Code and/or Codex CLI on your PATH
• Node.js ≥ 18

Install

npm i -g @danishx99/dispatch-cli
dispatch init

dispatch init interactively installs the handoff skill into the skill directories you pick. It detects ~/.claude/skills/ and ~/.agents/skills/ and offers each as a checkbox; existing dirs are pre-ticked. Press 1/2 to toggle, enter to install, q to cancel.

To install from source instead:

git clone https://github.com/danishx99/dispatch
ln -s "$(pwd)/dispatch/bin/dispatch" ~/.local/bin/dispatch
dispatch init

Commands

dispatch fork <claude|codex> [--new-pane|--replace] [--source <claude|codex>] [--from <id>]

Continue the current session in another tool.

• <target> — claude or codex. Same as the source tool means a same-tool fork (delegates to native fork machinery). Different tool means a cross-tool fork (snapshot + pointer prompt).
• --new-pane (default) — open the new session in a new tmux pane to the right.
• --replace — replace the current pane instead.
• --source <claude|codex> — restrict source-session resolution to one tool. Without this, dispatch picks the most-recently-modified session across both tools in your current cwd.
• --from <id> — pin to a specific session UUID instead of MRM. Requires --source.

dispatch handoff <claude|codex> "<brief>"|- [--new-pane|--replace]

Open the target tool in a fresh session with a brief as the first prompt. Pass - as the brief to read from stdin (heredoc-friendly). Usually invoked by an LLM via the installed handoff skill — you trigger it by saying "handoff to claude" or "handoff to codex" in your session.

dispatch init

Interactively install the handoff skill into your skill directories. Re-run after upgrading dispatch to refresh the skill template. Non-interactive (no TTY): installs to all detected skill directories, errors if none exist.

File layout

$(npm root -g)/@danishx99/dispatch-cli/        # package install
~/.local/bin/dispatch                          # CLI symlink (managed by npm)
~/.dispatch/snapshots/<ts>-<uuid>.jsonl        # cross-tool fork snapshots (manual cleanup)
~/.claude/skills/handoff/SKILL.md              # installed handoff skill
~/.agents/skills/handoff/SKILL.md              # installed handoff skill (if you use this convention)

Why

I use both Claude Code and Codex CLI heavily, often in the same project. Switching between them used to mean either losing context entirely (start fresh and re-explain) or copy-pasting half a conversation. Native fork helps within a tool, but there's no native bridge between them. dispatch is that bridge — small enough to read in one sitting, no dependencies, no daemon, no background process.

License

MIT