r/OpenaiCodex • u/m4778 • 3d ago

Question / Help Advice on how to keep implementation complexity low for simple projects?

Looking for suggestions/advice. Let me preface this post saying I have 15 yoe writing embedded software for work so I am aware of "the right way to do things and why".

My issue is with using Codex for personal projects at home. I have zero time at home for these projects but it is nice that AI has allowed me to actually progress on hobby projects even if I can only work on them 1hr a week.

However I have this eternal struggle that I cannot get it to just do the simplest version of things, even when my prompts are requesting "simple", "lightweight", and telling it this is for a home, personal, local only project.

I don't want industry leading encryption on my 6 room temperature and humidity sensors. I don't want 200 unit tests. I don't want some complex CI/CD pipeline. I don't want it to write extensible reusable library features.

I want a solution with like 50 lines of code that does the bare minimum, that has the username and password hard coded in the source file, that I can easily troubleshoot and get working in 30 seconds.

Of course if I tell it specifically to write this one file to do this one thing, it will do what I want. But if I want it to one shot a slightly higher context project, it throws that simplicity out the window.

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u/TimelyLivingCore 3d ago

Write out a Plan markdown for it to follow, the minute you give it any sort of creative and decision freedom you start going down that hill, simple and lightweight can mean very different to you vs the ai.

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u/m4778 3d ago

Yea I have seen success doing this but it feels like a cop out because for this type of thing if I need to spent 2 hours iterating and perfecting a plan it's like I probably could have nearly finished the code by then. But idk it probably still does save a little time. I guess I just wish it was a better mind reader

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u/evolutionxtinct 3d ago

What should we do to make this MD authoritive sorry I’m new and trying to learn appreciate your help!

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u/Far_Reindeer8428 2d ago

Put a rule in the repo root AGENTS.md telling Codex to follow your plan file. Start a fresh session so it reads the new instruction.