A blank AI coding chat is flexible, but game development needs repeatable studio structure. Someone has to protect the vision, keep milestones visible, review technical choices, validate gameplay changes, check accessibility, prepare release notes, and make sure decisions are not trapped in chat history.

Codex Game Studio gives a Codex session the shape of a game studio without turning it into a hosted project manager or game engine. You get tracked agents, skills, workflows, project state, and validation in ordinary files that humans can inspect in Git.

The template is deliberately clone-first: the visible AGENTS.md, .codex/agents/*.toml, .codex/workflows/*.md, and .agents/skills/*/SKILL.md files are the studio surface. init records project state; it does not regenerate or overwrite the studio template.

What's Included
Studio Hierarchy
Skills
Workflows
Getting Started
Project Structure
How It Works
Model Routing
Documentation
Project Status
License

What's Included

Category	Count	Description
Agents	38	Codex custom agents across production, design, programming, art, audio, narrative, QA, localization, live ops, release, and engine support
Skills	79	Reusable studio actions under `.agents/skills/*/SKILL.md`, from onboarding and design through QA, release, team orchestration, and standards
Workflows	31	Tracked prompt workflows for market review, specs, stories, sprints, QA, security, release, hotfixes, vertical slices, and handoffs
Engine Tracks	3	Godot, Unity, and Unreal specialist context with engine references and validation checks
Templates	31	Packaged document templates for GDDs, ADRs, technical designs, playtests, releases, postmortems, risk registers, pitch docs, and more
Validation	built in	Hard-failing checks for package assets, template surfaces, project state, metadata, engine references, and future-only CLI drift

Studio Hierarchy

Agents are organized like a small game studio: directors own vision and technical coherence, leads own domain direction, and specialists handle focused execution.

Tier 1 — Direction
  creative-director       technical-director      producer
  studio-orchestrator

Tier 2 — Department Leads
  game-designer           senior-game-designer    senior-game-artist
  audio-director          localization-lead       release-manager
  market-analyst          narrative-designer

Tier 3 — Specialists
  gameplay-programmer     engine-programmer       ai-programmer
  network-programmer      tools-programmer        ui-programmer
  systems-designer        level-designer          economy-designer
  game-feel-designer      technical-artist        sound-designer
  writer                  world-builder           ui-ux-designer
  qa-playtester           accessibility-specialist performance-analyst
  devops-engineer         security-engineer       data-scientist
  community-manager       live-ops-designer

Engine Specialists

Engine	Lead Agent	Focus
Godot 4	`godot-specialist`	GDScript, scenes, nodes, resources, signals, plugins, and Godot-specific validation
Unity	`unity-specialist`	C#, packages, scenes, prefabs, UI Toolkit, Addressables, Cinemachine, and DOTS/ECS context
Unreal Engine 5	`unreal-specialist`	C++, Blueprints, GAS, replication, UMG/CommonUI, plugins, and Unreal project conventions

Skills

Skills are tracked under .agents/skills/*/SKILL.md. They are the reusable studio actions Codex can apply while working inside the template.

Onboarding & Navigation cgs-start cgs-help cgs-project-stage-detect cgs-setup-engine cgs-adopt cgs-onboard

Game Design cgs-brainstorm cgs-map-systems cgs-design-system cgs-quick-design cgs-review-all-gdds cgs-propagate-design-change cgs-balance-check

Art & Assets cgs-art-bible cgs-asset-spec cgs-asset-audit

UX & Interface cgs-ux-design cgs-ux-review cgs-ui-ux-review

Architecture & Technical Planning cgs-create-architecture cgs-architecture-decision cgs-architecture-review cgs-create-control-manifest

Stories & Sprints cgs-create-epics cgs-create-stories cgs-dev-story cgs-sprint-plan cgs-sprint-status cgs-story-readiness cgs-story-done cgs-estimate cgs-vertical-slice

Reviews & Analysis cgs-design-review cgs-code-review cgs-scope-check cgs-perf-profile cgs-tech-debt cgs-gate-check cgs-consistency-check cgs-security-audit cgs-content-audit

QA & Testing cgs-qa-plan cgs-smoke-check cgs-soak-test cgs-regression-suite cgs-test-setup cgs-test-helpers cgs-test-evidence-review cgs-test-flakiness cgs-skill-test cgs-skill-improve

Production cgs-milestone-review cgs-retrospective cgs-bug-report cgs-bug-triage cgs-bugfix cgs-reverse-document cgs-playtest-report

Release cgs-release-checklist cgs-launch-checklist cgs-changelog cgs-patch-notes cgs-hotfix cgs-day-one-patch

Creative & Content cgs-prototype cgs-localize

Team Orchestration cgs-team-combat cgs-team-narrative cgs-team-ui cgs-team-release cgs-team-polish cgs-team-audio cgs-team-level cgs-team-live-ops cgs-team-qa

Path Standards cgs-standards-gameplay cgs-standards-prototype cgs-standards-tests cgs-standards-ui

Workflows

Workflow prompts live under .codex/workflows/*.md. They are inspection-friendly prompt surfaces; shortcut commands render prompts and do not launch Codex unless you explicitly run a role or task.

Phase	Workflows
Discovery	`brainstorm`, `market-analysis`, `analytics-setup`, `onboard`
Design	`design-spec`, `game-feel-tuning`, `art-direction`, `localization-plan`, `ui-ux-review`
Architecture	`architecture-decision`, `architecture-review`, `security-audit`, `perf-profile`
Planning	`create-epics`, `create-stories`, `sprint-plan`, `sprint-status`, `story-readiness`
Implementation	`vertical-slice`, `prototype`, `bugfix`, `hotfix`, `story-done`
QA & Review	`qa-plan`, `regression-suite`, `playtest`, `review`, `handoff`
Release	`production-milestone`, `release-checklist`, `ship-check`

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Git
Node.js 24 or newer
Codex CLI on PATH for run <role> and full validation

Setup

Clone the template repository:

git clone git@github.com:merlinhu1/codex-game-studio.git signal-cartographer
cd signal-cartographer

Install and build the CLI:
```
npm install
npm run build
```

Initialize project state:

./codex-game-studio init --name "Signal Cartographer" --engine godot --mode prototype --non-interactive \
  --concept "A compact puzzle game about routing trains through haunted switchyards"

Inspect and validate:

./codex-game-studio status
./codex-game-studio validate
./codex-game-studio run producer \
  "Create the initial market overview." --print-prompt

Project Structure

AGENTS.md                         # Game-facing Codex instructions
codex-game-studio                 # Source-checkout CLI wrapper
.codex/
  agents/                         # 38 Codex custom agents
  workflows/                      # 31 tracked workflow prompts
  studio.json                     # Project state written by init
  tasks.json                      # File-backed task state
  runs/                           # Runtime metadata for role/task runs
  locks/                          # Local orchestration locks
.agents/
  skills/                         # 79 reusable studio skills
engine_configs/                   # Engine setup metadata
engine_reference/                 # Godot, Unity, Unreal reference packs
templates/                        # Document templates used by workflows
production/                       # Timeline, milestones, session state
docs/                             # Small user/docs support surface
src/                              # TypeScript CLI source
tests/                            # Repository validation and behavior tests

How It Works

Template First

The clone is the studio. Agents, workflows, skills, and instruction files are committed template surfaces, not hidden generated output. init records project state and engine choices without copying the studio back into itself.

Codex-Native Execution

run <role> assembles a bounded prompt packet from the selected role, task, project state, tracked templates, and relevant context. Use --dry-run or --print-prompt to inspect before execution.

Reviewable State

Tasks, approvals, locks, context manifests, and run metadata live under .codex/**. The workflow favors ordinary Git review over opaque chat memory.

Strict Validation

./codex-game-studio validate checks package assets, template surfaces, role/workflow metadata, project state, engine references, and hidden future-only surfaces before readiness claims.

Model Routing

Prompt surfaces declare exact Codex model policy in tracked files:

Work type	Model
Complex design, architecture, production, and release gates	`gpt-5.5`
Moderate implementation, QA, docs, bugfix, and bounded workflows	`gpt-5.4`
Simple help, status, classification, checklist, and lookup work	`gpt-5.4-mini`

Runtime dry-runs and run metadata expose the selected model and reasoning effort. Codex execution receives the exact selected model instead of a generic tier name.

Documentation

Need	Start Here
Install, commands, workflows, validation	User Guide
Realistic usage scenarios	Examples
Full documentation map	Docs Index
Product boundaries and non-goals	Product Boundary

Project Status

Codex Game Studio currently supports template-repository setup, Codex role execution, workflow prompt rendering, file-backed task orchestration, and repository/project validation.

It deliberately does not expose a planner or next command, telemetry, hosted orchestration, unbounded parallelism, hard output-ownership enforcement, or generated CODEX.md / project_orchestrator.md surfaces.

License

Codex Game Studio is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

README.md

Codex Game Studio

Why This Exists

Table of Contents