I let Codex run for 6 hours. Here’s what happened.
In this 30-minute episode, I walk through my favorite feature in Codex: the /goal command. I show how Goals transform AI from a turn-based assistant that needs constant ‘what’s next?’ prompting into an autonomous agent that can work for hours on complex, multi-step tasks. I share three real examples: eliminating thousands of Sentry errors, cleaning 3,900 emails down to 68, and organizing hundreds of Linear tasks. *What you’ll learn:* 1. What Goals are and how they differ from standard prompts 2. How I used /goal to eliminate hundreds of error logs in my codebase over a five-hour autonomous run 3. The non-technical use cases that make Goals incredibly powerful: cleaning up 3,900 emails in under four hours and organizing hundreds of project management tasks in Linear 4. How to write effective /goal prompts with measurable outcomes, verification methods, and constraints 5. When not to use Goals and what makes a strong versus weak Goal 6. Why Goals represent a fundamental shift in how we work with AI, from babysitting the model to managing it *Brought to you by:* Mercury—Radically different banking loved by over 300K entrepreneurs: https://mercury.com/ *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction (01:50) What is /goal and when should you use it? (02:45) The difference between prompts and Goal-based loops (04:06) Claire’s first five-hour 45-minute autonomous coding task (05:05) How to manage a Goal lifecycle: view, pause, resume, and clear (06:06) How to write strong goals: outcomes vs. outputs (07:34) The six components of effective Goals (08:57) Example: Reducing P95 checkout latency with /goal (09:36) Demo: Using /goal to eliminate Sentry errors in ChatPRD (13:18) Demo: Burning down Vercel API errors (17:28) Non-technical use case: Cleaning 3,900 emails with /goal (21:24) Demo: Using /goal to clean up Linear project tasks (24:41) When not to use /goal (26:10) Why /goal changes everything *Tools referenced:* • Codex: https://openai.com/codex/ • Sentry: https://sentry.io/ • Vercel: https://vercel.com/ • Linear: https://linear.app/ *Other reference:* • OpenAI blog post “Using Goals in Codex”: https://developers.openai.com/cookbook/examples/codex/using_goals_in_codex *Where to find Claire Vo:* ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co._
