TaskChef

Less time managing tasks. More time moving them forward.

When work spans several Codex projects, you have to choose the right project, find each conversation again, and check which tasks are waiting for you. TaskChef gives you one dispatcher conversation as a central place to talk to agents and delegate work across projects, plus a dashboard for seeing what needs your attention.

Give TaskChef a GitHub issue or a rough idea. It uses an explicit project name, the conversation's context, or saved repository mappings to choose a Codex project; if the destination is unclear, it asks you to choose. TaskChef creates separate, ordinary Codex tasks in those projects. Each has its own conversation and native tools, and tasks can run in parallel.

You can keep using Codex as you do today. Start by delegating work where the project choice or follow-up is cumbersome, then bring more work into TaskChef as you go.

What working with TaskChef looks like

Suppose you have indexed two Codex projects, payments and recipe-book, and saved a GitHub repository mapping for payments. In your TaskChef dispatcher conversation, paste a payments issue link and ask:

Investigate this issue, fix the cause, and run the relevant tests: https://github.com/example/payments/issues/42

TaskChef uses the issue URL's repository to identify the mapped payments project. It then opens a separate Codex task there and returns its link. The task investigates the issue in its own conversation while other delegated tasks can work in recipe-book or other projects.

In the same dispatcher conversation, start another task from a rough idea:

In recipe-book, explore an idea for weekly meal planning. Discuss the approach with me before coding.

TaskChef selects recipe-book by name and opens a separate task there. Discuss the options in that task. If a written plan would help, ask it to save a Markdown plan, then ask it to implement the agreed approach in the same task. A plan file is created when you request one; it is not a required step for every task.

The screenshots in this walkthrough use illustrative demo data. Open the dashboard beside TaskChef master to see both tasks across your projects. Board groups tasks by Working, Needs input, Completed, and Failed so you can see their status at a glance.

Board gives an overview of task status across projects.

If the payments task needs a decision, it might ask, for example, whether to show a failed refund beside the original payment or in a separate list. Switch to List to see each task's request, latest result, and status in rows. Filter by Needs input to focus on the payments task's question.

List shows the payments request and result in the Needs input queue.

Select the payments task and choose Open chat to answer in its original Codex conversation.

Payments task details show the question and the Open chat action.

In that conversation, answer the question and ask the task to finish:

Show failed refunds beside the original payment. Implement it and run the tests.

When the work finishes, its result appears on the dashboard; TaskChef does not post each result back into the dispatcher chat.

The completed task shows its latest result above the earlier question.

Keep the dashboard beside your conversation in Codex's built-in browser. It shows each task's latest request and result. Open a task to see its total reported work duration, token usage, and estimated cost, with the same figures for each turn in its activity timeline. Duration is reported wall-clock time spent on turns; cost is an API-equivalent estimate, not a bill. Token and cost figures can be unavailable when usage cannot be mapped to the Codex task. Task states normally come from the task's own reports; TaskChef does not automatically supervise execution.

Install and delegate your first task

You need Node.js 18 or newer, Git, Codex desktop, and local access to the projects that will receive work. Install the plugin:

codex plugin marketplace add favoyang/codex-plugins
codex plugin add taskchef@favoyang-plugins

For the first run, set up the TaskChef dispatcher and import your saved local Codex projects:

$taskchef-bootstrap Set up TaskChef and index my local Codex projects.

After bootstrap, choose New chat in Codex and select the TaskChef dispatcher project at ~/.agents/taskchef. We suggest renaming the new conversation TaskChef master, then pinning it for easy return. Bootstrap registers and opens the project; you create, rename, and pin the conversation yourself. Replace <your-project> with one of your indexed Codex project names and try a read-only first request:

In <your-project>, explain how to run the app and tests. Do not change files.

TaskChef returns a link to the new Codex task. From then on, the dispatcher checks your saved Codex projects when you delegate, so you do not need to reindex after adding one. The local dashboard normally starts when the TaskChef plugin activates. Open the dashboard link from the end of each dispatcher response in Codex's side browser, beside your conversation. If the dashboard is unavailable, ask $taskchef-dashboard to ensure and open it. Use $taskchef-bootstrap to add repository mappings or refine project descriptions when routing needs more context. If the installed skills do not appear, activate or reload the TaskChef plugin in Codex and try again.

Choose models for each role

In the dashboard's Settings page, choose a model and reasoning effort for the Orchestrator, Planner, Implementer, and Reviewer roles. TaskChef saves these preferences in native Codex agent files under ~/.codex/agents/ and applies them when it dispatches the corresponding work. Set them once for future tasks; a model choice you make explicitly for a task takes precedence over its role preference.

Settings shows the model and reasoning effort selected for each role.

More detail

The advanced guide covers project indexing, routing, task reporting, dashboard behavior, recovery, updates, and development. The specification and workflows describe the implementation contracts. TaskChef was inspired by FirstMate; the comparison explains their different approaches.

License

Copyright 2026 Favo Yang. TaskChef is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Third-party dependencies retain their own licenses. The OpenAI Codex icons are excluded from TaskChef's license; see the Codex asset notice.