Codex Code Review

Overview

Use the OpenAI Codex CLI to perform AI-powered code reviews. Supports reviewing branches, uncommitted changes, specific commits, and custom-scoped reviews. Reviews are read-only and never modify the working tree.

Prerequisites

• Codex CLI installed (npm i -g @openai/codex )

• Authenticated (codex login )

Workflow

Step 1: Determine Review Scope

Ask the user what they want reviewed if not already clear:

Scope When to use

Branch diff Before opening or merging a PR

Uncommitted changes During active development

Specific commit Auditing a single changeset

Custom User provides specific review instructions

Step 2: Run the Review

Branch review (compare current branch against base):

codex review --base main -c model="gpt-5.3-codex"

Uncommitted changes:

codex review --uncommitted -c model="gpt-5.3-codex"

Specific commit:

codex review --commit <SHA> -c model="gpt-5.3-codex"

Custom review with focused instructions:

codex review -c model="gpt-5.3-codex" "Review the code for accessibility regressions and WCAG compliance."

Common Flags

Flag Description

--base <BRANCH>

Review changes against a base branch

--uncommitted

Review staged, unstaged, and untracked changes

--commit <SHA>

Review changes introduced by a specific commit

--title <TITLE>

Optional commit title for the review summary

-c model="gpt-5.3-codex"

Override the model (preferred: gpt-5.3-codex )

Rules

• Default to reviewing the current branch diff against main unless the user specifies otherwise

• Always pass -c model="gpt-5.3-codex" to use the preferred model

• Use --base , --uncommitted , or --commit flags to set the review scope instead of describing it in the prompt

• Present findings sorted by priority (highest first)

• Summarize the overall assessment before listing individual findings

• If Codex CLI is not installed, instruct the user to run npm i -g @openai/codex and codex login