Better Plugins — Development skill for Claude Code

Better Plugins

Codex plugins from John Lindquist for making agents more effective.

Plugins

• toolsmith: observes supported Codex prompts and tool calls locally, then turns repeated patterns into practical tool, skill, script, and AGENTS.md improvements.

Install

Make sure plugin hooks are enabled in `~/.codex/config.toml`:

[features]
hooks = true
plugins = true
plugin_hooks = true

Add the Better Plugins marketplace and install Toolsmith:

codex plugin marketplace add johnlindquist/better-plugins
codex plugin add toolsmith@better-plugins

Restart Codex after installing or updating plugins. Open `/plugins` to confirm the plugin is installed and enabled, then open `/hooks` to review/trust bundled hooks if Codex asks.

Local Development Install

git clone https://github.com/johnlindquist/better-plugins.git
cd better-plugins
codex plugin marketplace add "$PWD"
codex plugin add toolsmith@better-plugins

After local edits, reinstall the plugin so Codex refreshes its cached copy:

codex plugin remove toolsmith@better-plugins
codex plugin add toolsmith@better-plugins

Toolsmith Data

Toolsmith writes to `$PLUGIN_DATA` when Codex provides it. In current Codex plugin installs this is typically:

~/.codex/plugins/data/better-plugins-toolsmith/

It also writes a locator fallback under:

~/.codex/plugin-data/toolsmith/active-data-root.json

The raw daily JSONL lives under `events/`; the compact deduped index lives at `indexes/tool-index.json`.

Toolsmith captures `UserPromptSubmit` events so recommendations can understand intent before judging tool usage. For example, a native macOS Swift task should not produce a generic browser-verification recommendation just because the original prompt mentioned a website. A URL in a prompt is treated as external context unless the prompt or commands also show web-app, front-end, browser, DOM, or localhost UI intent.

Toolsmith also has a Research Ph