The 15 Best OpenAI Codex Skills

Ranked by quality, maintenance and a safety scan of every file · Updated September 2026

Skills and AGENTS.md instructions for OpenAI Codex CLI and other agents that read the same files. We compared 62 OpenAI Codex Skills that pass our quality bar, 98% of which came up clean on our safety scan; these are the top 15, no more than three from any one repository.

1
GPT-Image2-Skill
by wuyoscar
GPT Image 2/2.5 prompt gallery, image prompt library, agentic skill, and CLI for OpenAI image generation/editing
Quality 84/100Safety scan clean★ 5,537Updated 14 days ago
Why it is here: updated 14 days ago; clean safety scan; 5,537 GitHub stars.
```
npx skills add wuyoscar/GPT-Image2-Skill
```
2
narrator-ai-cli-skill
by NarratorAI-Studio
AI 解说大师 — Agent skill；封装 narrator-ai-cli 供 Claude/Codex 等工具调用
Quality 90/100Safety scan clean★ 2,667Updated 2026-07-05
Why it is here: clean safety scan; 2,667 GitHub stars.
```
npx skills add NarratorAI-Studio/narrator-ai-cli-skill
```
3
anything2explainer
by Vincentwei1021
Topic in, narrated explainer video out. A Claude Code / Codex skill that turns any topic into a black-canvas motion-graphics explainer video with TTS voiceover, subtitles and a chapter progress bar. Chinese or English; every frame drawn in code with Remotion.
Quality 94/100Safety scan clean★ 2,014Updated 5 days ago
Why it is here: highest quality score in this list; updated 5 days ago; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add Vincentwei1021/anything2explainer
```
4
token-optimizer
by alexgreensh
Find the ghost tokens. Fix them. Survive compaction. Avoid context quality decay.
Quality 82/100Safety scan clean★ 2,361Updated today
Why it is here: updated in the last day; clean safety scan; 2,361 GitHub stars.
```
npx skills add alexgreensh/token-optimizer
```
5
Chisle
by JayPokale
Cut your AI coding agent's token bill on three axes: terse prose, YAGNI-first code, and tool-output compression. Claude Code, Pi, Cursor, Codex, Gemini + 4 more. Zero deps, published benchmarks including the runs it loses.
Quality 92/100Safety scan clean★ 518Updated today
Why it is here: updated in the last day; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add JayPokale/Chisle
```
6
youtube-fetcher-to-markdown
by JimmySadek
Portable AI-agent skill: capture YouTube transcripts as Obsidian-ready Markdown with metadata, linked timestamps, language selection, and subtitle exports
Quality 90/100Safety scan clean★ 483Updated 18 days ago
Why it is here: updated 18 days ago; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add JimmySadek/youtube-fetcher-to-markdown
```
7
vexjoy-agent
by notque
VexJoy AI Agent with Jev Intelligent Routing - /do routes plain-English requests to the right specialist agent and gates the work with reviews, tests, and a learning loop.
Quality 91/100Safety scan clean★ 424Updated today
Why it is here: updated in the last day; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add notque/vexjoy-agent
```
8
GodotMaker
by RandallLiuXin
Autonomous text-to-game pipeline for Godot, powered by Claude Code,Codex,Opencode
Quality 87/100Safety scan clean★ 549Updated 6 days ago
Why it is here: updated 6 days ago; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add RandallLiuXin/GodotMaker
```
9
speaker
by AI272
Speaker is a Codex skill project for academic presentations: read real.pptx, combine text extraction, PPTX structure parsing, page-by-page rendering, OCR, and visual review to generate page-by-page speaker notes, and write a clean version of the lecture into the PowerPoint comment area.
Quality 87/100Safety scan clean★ 460Updated 2026-06-23
Why it is here: clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add AI272/speaker
```
10
cti-expert
by 7onez
CTI Expert — Cyber Threat Intelligence & OSINT analysis skill for Claude Code / Codex. 120+ commands, 57 techniques, 79 typed MCP tools, deterministic case pipeline + ICD-203 reports. No API keys required for core.
Quality 83/100Safety scan clean★ 599Updated 2 days ago
Why it is here: updated 2 days ago; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add 7onez/cti-expert
```
11
mcp-for-stata
by SepineTam
A MCP server for integrating Stata into your agent loop with a safety-first design.
Quality 87/100Safety scan clean★ 260Updated today
Why it is here: updated in the last day; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add SepineTam/mcp-for-stata
```
12
trace-mcp
by nikolai-vysotskyi
Framework-aware code intelligence MCP server — 88 framework integrations, 81 languages, 72.7% fewer input tokens to review a pull request, comprehension at parity
Quality 90/100Safety scan clean★ 182Updated today
Why it is here: updated in the last day; clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add nikolai-vysotskyi/trace-mcp
```
13
embedded-debugger-mcp
by Adancurusul
MCP server + CLI + Codex/Claude skill for embedded debugging via probe-rs or OpenOCD — ARM Cortex-M, RISC-V, and Xtensa (ESP32), with AI crash diagnosis
Quality 88/100Safety scan clean★ 194Updated 2026-07-16
Why it is here: clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add Adancurusul/embedded-debugger-mcp
```
14
paper-search-pro
by O0000-code
Academic literature discovery as a Skill — Claude Code · Codex · any agent that loads SKILL.md. Five sources · four tiers · single-file Shadcn report.
Quality 88/100Safety scan clean★ 171Updated 2026-07-14
Why it is here: clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add O0000-code/paper-search-pro
```
15
aelf-skills
by AElfProject
Unified aelf skills hub for discovery, routing, bootstrap, and health checks across OpenClaw, Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code.
Quality 84/100Safety scan clean★ 184Updated 2026-03-30
Why it is here: clean safety scan.
```
npx skills add AElfProject/aelf-skills
```

Side by side

#	Name	Quality	Safety	Stars	Updated
1	GPT-Image2-Skill	84	Clean	5,537	14 days ago
2	narrator-ai-cli-skill	90	Clean	2,667	2026-07-05
3	anything2explainer	94	Clean	2,014	5 days ago
4	token-optimizer	82	Clean	2,361	today
5	Chisle	92	Clean	518	today
6	youtube-fetcher-to-markdown	90	Clean	483	18 days ago
7	vexjoy-agent	91	Clean	424	today
8	GodotMaker	87	Clean	549	6 days ago
9	speaker	87	Clean	460	2026-06-23
10	cti-expert	83	Clean	599	2 days ago
11	mcp-for-stata	87	Clean	260	today
12	trace-mcp	90	Clean	182	today
13	embedded-debugger-mcp	88	Clean	194	2026-07-16
14	paper-search-pro	88	Clean	171	2026-07-14
15	aelf-skills	84	Clean	184	2026-03-30

How we rank

Only skills we have read make the list: the file itself was fetched, it has a real description, it scores at least 55 of 100 on quality, its source still exists, its repository has at least 20 GitHub stars, and our safety scan found nothing high-risk. The order then follows adoption (GitHub stars, on a log scale), how squarely it fits this topic, and its quality score (how substantial and well structured the file is and how recently it changed), moved up for a clean safety scan and for real installs through the SkillAgent MCP server, and down for safety notes. At most three come from any one repository, and tools sold on evading bot detection are never listed. We do not rank by install counts reported by a command-line tool: they are easy to inflate, and our research found repositories with no stars claiming hundreds of thousands of installs. The list is recomputed on every visit.

Questions

What is the best OpenAI Codex Skill?

GPT-Image2-Skill by wuyoscar ranks first: updated 14 days ago, clean safety scan, 5,537 GitHub stars. The full ranking above lists 15 alternatives with their trade-offs.

How do I install one?

Each entry shows a one-line command. `npx skills add` installs a skill for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI and other agents that read skill files.

Are these safe to install?

Every file is scanned for instructions that work against you: hidden text, data sent to outside servers, disabled approval prompts, leaked keys. Skills with a warning are never listed here, and 98% of the 62 we compared for this guide came up clean. Read a skill before installing it all the same: it runs with your permissions.