Dev Partner is a Codex skill for long-running feature development in a local git repository connected to GitHub. It keeps feature work stateful, reviewable, and explicitly controlled by the human developer.
Long feature work is risky when it is handled as one large autonomous agent change. Dev Partner turns that work into a controlled workflow: requirements are captured in a state file, the feature is decomposed into small PR-sized steps, and the agent executes only one explicitly selected step at a time.
The main value is keeping the target PR clean. The target PR does not contain the noise of programmer-agent interaction, so it can remain the place where the programmer and reviewer communicate normally. The programmer can review each small agent PR in their preferred IDE, and the reviewer receives smaller diffs with lower cognitive load.
Dev Partner maintains dev-partner-state.md in the target repository. The file records the task, current stage, current step, step states, side tasks, and development log.
The workflow has four main stages:
0-requirements: clarify and capture the feature scope before implementation.1-planning: split the feature into small PR-sized steps.2-pr-loop: execute one selected step in its own branch and PR.3-done: mark the workflow complete after all accepted work is merged.
The skill is intentionally not an autonomous feature executor. It must not start implementation, create branches, push code, open PRs, or merge PRs without an explicit human signal for that transition.
Developer: "Use Dev Partner for this feature: add tenant-aware access checks to project settings."
Agent: captures the task in dev-partner-state.md, asks focused clarification questions if needed, and waits for the developer to accept the task statement.
Developer: "Move to planning."
Agent: decomposes the feature into small steps, for example:
STEP-001: add tenant context to the project settings service.STEP-002: enforce access checks in read and update paths.STEP-003: add regression tests and documentation updates.
Developer: "Implement STEP-001."
Agent: creates a step branch from the task branch, implements only STEP-001, runs relevant checks, opens a PR from the step branch into the task branch, records the PR URL in dev-partner-state.md, and stops.
The developer reviews the small step PR in their preferred IDE, comments on unclear or risky parts, and leaves any requested changes on GitHub.
Developer: "Review is finished."
Agent: reads the published GitHub review comments, updates the code where the comments are valid, replies to each handled comment, resolves completed threads, pushes the fixes, updates the state file, and waits again.
The developer reviews the updated step PR. If more comments are needed, the same review loop repeats.
Developer: "STEP-001 accepted."
Agent: squash-merges the step PR into the task branch, marks STEP-001 as done, clears the current step, deletes the step branch when appropriate, and stops.
Developer: "Implement STEP-002."
Agent: repeats the same one-step PR loop for STEP-002, then for STEP-003, and never starts the next step without an explicit developer signal.
After all steps are accepted, the task branch contains the full feature. The developer can then open or update the final target PR for normal review, without the noise of the programmer-agent working loop.
The target repository must be a local git repository connected to GitHub.
Required tools:
gitghnodenpm
Before GitHub work, verify authentication with:
gh auth statusRun the installer from this directory:
.\install.ps1The installer currently supports installation only into the local Codex skills directory. It prints the currently installed version and the version being installed.
README.md, LICENSE, and .gitignore are source-only files. They are not copied into the installed Codex skill directory, so the installed skill only contains files needed at runtime.
MIT. See LICENSE.