[Bug]: Repo-local Codex skills do not appear in T3 Code `$` skill picker

[laceyp99]

Before submitting

• I searched existing issues and did not find a duplicate.
• I included enough detail to reproduce or investigate the problem.

Area

apps/server

Steps to reproduce

1. Install/update Codex CLI and verify it is current:

codex --version

2. Create a repository-local Codex skill under a project:

<repo>/
 .agents/
 skills/
 add-model-support/
 SKILL.md
 agents/
 openai.yaml 

3. Use valid SKILL.md frontmatter:

---
name: add-model-support
description: Add support for a newly announced model from an existing provider.
---

4. Verify Codex sees the repo-local skill when launched from the repo:

codex -C <repo-path> debug prompt-input "test" | rg "add-model-support"

5. Open the same repository in T3 Code, type $ in the composer, and look for add-model-support.
6. Fully quit T3 Code, delete the Codex provider cache, and reopen T3 Code:

Remove-Item "$env:USERPROFILE\.t3\caches\codex.json"

7. Type $ again and observe that the skill is still missing.
8. Confirm the rebuilt T3 Code cache does not include the repo-local skill:

rg "add-model-support" "$env:USERPROFILE\.t3\caches\codex.json"

Expected behavior

When opening the repo in T3 Code, repo-local Codex skills under .agents/skills should appear in the $ skill picker, the same way they do in Codex.

In this case, $add-model-support should be available when working in the LoopGPT repository.

Actual behavior

The skill does not appear in T3 Code’s $ picker.

T3 Code appears to load global/plugin Codex skills from its Codex cache, but not the repo-local .agents/skills entry.

Impact

Minor bug or occasional failure

Version or commit

T3 Code Alpha: v0.0.27.0

Environment

Windows 11 Core, 64-bit, Windows desktop app (T3 Code Alpha), npm installed codex-cli 0.139.0

Logs or stack traces

Screenshots, recordings, or supporting files

No response

Workaround

Just prompt the agent to find and read the skill instead of manually invoking it. Not ideal for consistency in performance though.

[jakeleventhal]

@juliusmarminge #3982 my PR here solves this for both codex and Grok

[Cedillin]

Confirming on macOS with the packaged nightly (0.0.29-nightly.20260727.919, t3codeCommitHash f4c394323d45, codex-cli 0.145.0), and adding a repro that isolates the variable to cwd alone.

Driving codex app-server directly, the only thing that changes between a hit and a miss is the cwds argument:

send({"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"skills/list",
 "params":{"cwds":[CWD],"forceReload":True}})

cwds	result for a repo-local .agents/skills/migration-workflow
["/Users/david/projects/maat/workspace-app"]	found — scope: "repo", path: <repo>/.agents/skills/migration-workflow/SKILL.md
["/"]	absent (122 skills, all global)

So Codex itself is fine; the skill file, frontmatter and agents/openai.yaml are all fine. What T3 passes is the problem — from apps/server/dist/bin.mjs in the shipped asar:

const probeResult = yield* probe({
 binaryPath: codexSettings.binaryPath,
 ...
 cwd: process.cwd(), // <-- server process cwd, not the open project

and on the receiving side, a cwds entry that matches nothing falls back to flattening every entry, which quietly hides the miss:

const matchingEntry = response.data.find((entry) => entry.cwd === cwd);
return (matchingEntry ? matchingEntry.skills : response.data.flatMap((e) => e.skills))

In the packaged macOS app that cwd is /:

$ lsof -a -p <t3code-pid> -d cwd -Fn
n/

which is why deleting ~/.t3/caches/codex.json and restarting doesn't help — the rebuild asks the same wrong question.

Same root cause on the Claude driver (#4544): discoverClaudeSkills(config, cwd, env) scans <cwd>/.claude/skills with that same ServerConfig.cwd. So this isn't Codex-specific — every driver's project scope is dead in packaged builds. #3982 covers codex + grok and #4546 covers claude; worth landing them together.

Workaround that survives app restarts, if anyone needs it before those merge — symlink the repo skill into the global root the probe does scan:

ln -s <repo>/.agents/skills/<name> ~/.codex/skills/<name>
ln -s <repo>/.agents/skills/<name> ~/.claude/skills/<name>

It then shows up as scope: "user". Nightly updates don't clobber it, since it lives outside the app bundle.