Proposal: explore interoperability conventions for AI coding

Hi Codex team,

I recently created opinionated-ts/ai-spec, an early community-driven effort to explore an open specification for interoperability between AI coding assistants and development environments.

The repository was created only recently, and this project is intentionally at a very early stage. The specification is not yet stable or finalized. The goal is to involve the ecosystems and communities that are already solving these problems before conventions become independently established and difficult to reconcile later.

The project is focused on exploring common conventions around areas such as:

• Agents
• Hooks
• Plugins
• Instructions and configuration
• Discovery and precedence
• Lifecycle behavior
• Project-level AI configuration
• Other conventions that may benefit from interoperability

The goal is not to replace Codex, abstract its implementation, or require Codex to adopt a particular architecture.

Instead, ai-spec is intended to provide a neutral, community-driven place where existing approaches can be compared, discussed, and potentially standardized where interoperability provides real value.

The repository currently contains the initial project structure, contribution guidelines, and discussion process. Contributors are encouraged to examine existing implementations and prior art before proposing conventions.

I would particularly appreciate feedback from the Codex team on:

1. Which existing Codex conventions should be considered important prior art.
2. Which areas you believe would benefit from interoperability.
3. Which behaviors should remain implementation-specific.
4. Whether there are existing efforts or constraints that should be considered before defining common conventions.
5. Whether the Codex team or community would be interested in participating while the specification is still being shaped.

Repository and discussion

Repository: https://github.com/opinionated-ts/ai-spec

Contributing: https://github.com/opinionated-ts/ai-spec/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

Discussions: https://github.com/opinionated-ts/ai-spec/discussions

This is intentionally an early-stage initiative rather than a request for immediate adoption.

The goal is to start the conversation early, collect real-world prior art, and give the different ecosystems and their communities an opportunity to influence the direction of the specification before it becomes mature.

Start by reviewing the linked opinionated-ts/ai-spec repository, its CONTRIBUTING.md, and its discussions, then compare the conventions it proposes with Codex's existing behavior. This issue is done when the relevant Codex prior art, interoperability opportunities, and implementation-specific constraints have been documented or discussed with the project team.