The Codex feature that works while you sleep

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:What Goals are and how they differ from standard promptsHow I used /goal to eliminate hundreds of error logs in my codebase over a five-hour autonomous runThe 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 LinearHow to write effective /goal prompts with measurable outcomes, verification methods, and constraintsWhen not to use Goals and what makes a strong versus weak GoalWhy 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—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 [email protected].