Level 5 Practice: Work from an Issue Through Pull Request Review
About 5 minutes
About This Tutorial
Section titled “About This Tutorial”For the concepts and completion standards, first read Codex Levels 0-10.
Local edits alone separate acceptance criteria, review history, and merge decisions. Level 5 connects repository changes to the GitHub work record.
What You Will Complete
Section titled “What You Will Complete”You will produce an issue-linked branch and pull request. The goal is not the amount of work; it is a reproducible Level 5 delegation boundary and completion check.
Step 1: Set the Boundary
Section titled “Step 1: Set the Boundary”Before handing work to Codex, state the goal, scope, exclusions, and completion criteria. Adapt this prompt to your project.
Read this issue and convert its acceptance criteria into a checklist. After approval, create a branch, implement, verify, commit, and open a pull request. Do not merge it.Check: Continue only when Codex can restate the scope and unresolved questions before acting.
Step 2: Practice
Section titled “Step 2: Practice”- Extract the goal, acceptance criteria, and exclusions from the issue.
- Implement and verify on a convention-compliant branch, committing only intended files.
- Describe changes, checks, screenshot needs, and open items in the pull request.
Keep the scope stable and inspect the output or diff after each stage.
Step 3: Verify Completion
Section titled “Step 3: Verify Completion”You are done when the pull request maps to the issue criteria and reviewers can reproduce the validation.
Record the actions performed, supporting evidence, and anything not verified. Also record why work stopped when a condition was not met.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”Codex exceeded the requested scope
Section titled “Codex exceeded the requested scope”Stop the task and inspect the diff. Add explicit owned files and exclusions to the prompt, then rerun only the approved scope.
Completion is difficult to judge
Section titled “Completion is difficult to judge”Replace vague criteria such as “implement it” with observable files, commands, pages, or review results.
Next Step
Section titled “Next Step”Continue to Level 6 to expand the delegation boundary by one step.
See the references for the external specifications and background sources used on this page.[1][2][3]