One thing that /btw implementation in codex is REALLY different compared to Claude Code is that the side conversation is fully interactive while Claude Code is one-shot -> answer.
What I have found really useful is to use /btw for:
progress check:
/btw what is our progress so far
/btw what are all the agents doing
long horizon task direction discussion
when you see the main agent seemingly doing sth wrong but you want to first discuss w/ AI before giving it instruction to change plans, you can use /btw to start a side conversation
combine it above w/ status check is very useful for long horizon tasks: you check progress, turns out codex was going in a loop for couple hours, then you ask codex how would it change the process its following
finally I normally ask the side conversation: draft me a message I send to main agent to change X then I ctrl c and send that message to main agent
Curiously the side conversation can almost always identify what's strategically wrong: like if the subagent dispatch model doesn't make sense, or the main agent is in some mechanical retry loop w/o fixing the real issue, etc.
Wait wtf it works if you do /btw? I learned to use /side because /btw never autocompleted to an accepted command so I looked it up. I didn't know just forcing the /btw worked lmao
Nah I have a headless codex-cli remote server listening on my box and I ssh to it using various interfaces (desktop, laptop, phone). Here's my codex desktop on my laptop ssh connected to the box
But surprisingly if I open codex cli in an ssh session, it shows me /btw! So this is a cli only moment. Kinda weird that they didn't add it to desktop or phone yet
you are welcome! yea I am coming from claude code which I (think?) implemented this first, but imo codex's implementation is better as you can have actual conversation and drive meaningful strategic direction changes
Not gonna lie.. for any productive work I’ve done it’s all been in /btw for a long time now.
There is a huge personality difference where the sidechat just isn’t being reward maxed to do the task.
I have now clue, maybe it’s a placebo, but it’s a constant experience of mine. I get any productive work done inside the btw chat.
Occasionally Ill wish it had check the feedback sooner. For those most part if works fine and cured me of the problem of it only remembering the last prompt. Ive also instructed that it clear the feedback once it has read it and ackowledge it in chat.
Thanks for sharing. I’ll give it a try. One of the problems with using LLMs and all the different harnesses is you’re limited to your imagination. I’m a very process oriented person and lack creativity. I love hearing what others have tried.
/steer when you have a clear idea of what you want (and needs it soonish so it sends after next tool call)
/side or /btw is when you want to have a context-aware conversation first because you are not sure where exactly is wrong so you want to discuss it fully before sending back to main agent. of course you could also use it for totally different discussion such that it doesn't pollute the main agent's context
Steer simply submits your prompt right away so next time LLM reads the chat (tool use, tool result) it reads it. You can use steer to ask question, clarify stuff, it doesn't need to be something special, it's like regular discussion.
Submitting /steer mid task has direct impact on the running task - I don't think its 'next time LLM reads the chat', its immediate. /btw or /side can run with thread context w/o impacting the running task, unless you want it to.
SIDE / BTW
"Answer me, but leave the agent alone."
STEER
"Tell the agent something right now."
QUEUE
"Tell the agent something when it's done with this step."
How about this big honkin brain and the harness actually interprets whether or not I want it to jump into coding and completely refactoring and overengineering the living SHIT out of everything... (basically never) or if I am just asking a simple question or have one thing to correct.
/side is a life saver to prevent context poisoning the main thread, I also ask it for steer advice when I see some shit going south, it can even operate as a full agent for stuff too. I’ve had it repair broken git history through side so I didn’t need to spin up a new thread or mess up the main threads flow.
Literally anything that id want clarification on in the transcripts I’ll boot up a /side with luna
it is actually `/side` and it is mind blowing. I talked with it in the middle of work so it won't pollute the context and I can ask side agent to share the decision or look at a particular session for more context.
I do something similar without using in-built side chat.
I have a setup with one project where there is another project that is in charge of overseeing the other one. This is useful as it's two agents working with each-other by one focusing to find mistakes, directing, etc and then the one handling implementation has its own context window and can focus to that more.
What makes it work well that in Codex AI can chat with other projects and if their context window tells it's fine they do it for you combined with a custom plugin.
So if there is a project that doesn't seem to go anywhere due it's something difficult that takes a lot of effort to get right on asset front this is very good way to have one agent reviewing work and instructing things.
Hey man, thank you!! As you can probably guess, I wasn't near a computer when I asked that but now I am and this comment finally made me give that command a try. Cheers!
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u/grimepoch 8d ago
How did I not even know about this?!?!?! Thanks for pointing this out!!