Lesson 3 / 7 · ~12 minutes

Cloud: delegate
and let it work

This is why Codex exists. A cloud task runs in an isolated environment on OpenAI's servers with a copy of your project. You can switch your own computer off meanwhile. And since every task gets its own sandbox, you can happily send three at once.

Local or cloud?

  • Local: small things you want right now: a typo fix, a tiny tweak, a quick question about the code. You see it immediately.
  • Cloud: anything that takes time: a new feature, tests for a whole module, refactoring, bigger changes. Brief it, walk away, come back to a finished result.

What you get back

A finished task returns three things: the diff (the exact list of changes: green added, red removed), the logs (what the agent did and why) and the test results. Your job is the review: go through the diff, verify the behaviour, decide. If you don't like the result, you fork the task: adjust the brief and the agent tries again, without losing the original version.

Your phone is a full remote control: you create, watch and fork tasks straight from the ChatGPT app. And via Codex Remote you can even kick off work on your paired computer at home, and approvals happen remotely.

Parallel delegation, live

The replay: three tasks for the rate calculator, briefed at once. Watch them come back one by one and see what diff review looks like.

Decision game: what do you do?

Three situations from a delegator's life. Pick the best reaction.

1. Which task is worth sending to the cloud?

B. Long, self-contained work with a clear end is ideal for delegation. A typo you fix locally in seconds. Sending it to the cloud is like calling the movers for one chair.

2. You have three unrelated tasks. How do you brief them?

B. Unrelated things = separate tasks. They run at once (faster), each gets a clean diff (easier review), and if one fails, the others aren't held up.

3. The task finished, tests green, but you don't quite understand the diff. Now what?

C. That's exactly what forking is for. The agent will explain the changes in plain language or propose a simpler approach. Blind accepting and blind discarding both rob you of control.

Summary

  • Small things locally, anything longer to the cloud.
  • Brief unrelated tasks separately, so they run in parallel.
  • Review = diff + logs + tests. Don't understand? Fork and ask.
  • Mobile: briefing, watching, and Remote control of a paired computer.
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