director-mode-lite

Director Mode Lite

Direct work across Claude Code, Codex CLI, and Grok Build.

Director Mode Lite is a guidance-first development toolkit. It gives three agentic CLIs a shared operating brief, reusable skills, adapted agents, and a portable way to hand unfinished work to one another.

It adds no permission gates, deny rules, or forced workflow. Claude Code, Codex, and Grok keep their native controls, so users can choose their preferred trusted/full-access mode without Director Mode getting in the way.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/claude-world/director-mode-lite.git
cd director-mode-lite
./install.sh --cli all /path/to/your-project

Then open the project with any supported CLI:

claude
codex
grok

For the product's full-capability, no-prompt profile, use the installed launcher in a trusted workspace:

.director-mode/bin/director-open claude
.director-mode/bin/director-open codex
.director-mode/bin/director-open grok

It uses each CLI's native open flags—Claude bypassPermissions, Codex danger-full-access with approvals disabled, and Grok always-approve with its sandbox off. It does not emulate permissions with hooks. Native managed policy can still override the flags, and existing global hooks can still run.

Start with the director-mode skill. When another CLI should continue, use session-relay.

What gets shared

Capability	Canonical source	Claude Code	Codex CLI	Grok Build
Repository guidance	portable/GUIDANCE.md	CLAUDE.md + .director-mode/	AGENTS.md + .director-mode/	reads both
Skills	skills/*/SKILL.md	.claude/skills/	.agents/skills/	reads Claude-compatible skills
Agents	agents/*.md	.claude/agents/*.md	generated .codex/agents/*.toml	generated .grok/agents/*.md
Optional context hook	hooks/advisory.sh	settings.local.json	.codex/hooks.json	none (passive stdout is ignored)
Session continuity	director-handoff/v2	new native session	new native session	new native session
Open launcher	scripts/director-open.sh	native bypass mode	native full-access mode	native always-approve / sandbox off
Read-only diagnosis	scripts/director-doctor.py	runtime/assets/hooks	runtime/assets/hooks	runtime/assets/hooks

Grok's Claude compatibility is reused for skills, so the installer does not create a second, conflicting .grok/skills/ tree. Agents receive minimal native adapters because Claude-specific model, tool, and memory frontmatter is not portable across every Grok release.

The operating brief

Before substantial work, keep five things visible:

• Outcome — what should be true at the end.
• Context — the repository facts and prior decisions that matter.
• Constraints — compatibility, scope, time, and user preferences.
• Evidence — tests, build, diff, or inspection that will demonstrate success.
• Next decision — where human judgment adds the most value.

The full guide lives at .director-mode/GUIDANCE.md after installation. It is short by design: permanent instruction files are most useful when they contain only facts needed in every session; detailed procedures belong in skills.

Cross-CLI session relay

Claude, Codex, and Grok each store their own native conversation history. A vendor session ID cannot generally resume in a different vendor's CLI.

Director Mode solves the portable part: it creates JSON and Markdown packets with the goal, current state, decisions, Git snapshot, verification, blockers, and next steps. The receiver starts a new native session and reads the packet.

Leave work for another CLI

.director-mode/bin/director-relay create \
  --from claude \
  --to codex \
  --goal "Finish the authentication refresh" \
  --summary "API behavior is implemented; UI wiring remains" \
  --completed "Added refresh-token rotation" \
  --decision "Kept cookies httpOnly to match the existing threat model" \
  --next "Update the sign-in form" \
  --verification "API unit tests pass"

The relay automatically captures only Git metadata and diff statistics; it does not scan raw transcripts, file contents, or credentials, or serialize the process environment. The packet still contains user-supplied text, paths, and Git filenames. Review those before sharing it outside the workspace; add --reviewed when you want that review recorded in the packet.

Protocol v2 adds multi-hop lineage (root_id, parent_id, hop, and route) and still validates v1 packets. Chain a Claude → Codex → Grok handoff with:

.director-mode/bin/director-relay create --parent \
  --from codex --to grok \
  --goal "Finish the authentication refresh" \
  --summary "Codex completed UI wiring; integration tests remain" \
  --next "Run the browser integration suite"

Continue the latest packet

# Print a copyable interactive command
.director-mode/bin/director-relay continue --to codex

# Launch only when that is what you want
.director-mode/bin/director-relay continue --to codex --run

# Use a one-shot receiving session
.director-mode/bin/director-relay continue --to grok --headless --run

Other relay commands:

.director-mode/bin/director-relay validate
.director-mode/bin/director-relay status --json
.director-mode/bin/director-relay show
.director-mode/bin/director-relay list

status compares the captured branch, HEAD, Git status, and diff statistics to the live worktree without blocking continuation. When --run is selected, the receiver starts in the caller's live project root; a packet's old workspace path is never trusted as an execution directory.

For same-provider history, keep the provider's native resume flow: Claude Code uses --continue / --resume, Codex uses resume / exec resume, and Grok uses --continue / --resume. Cross-provider work always starts a new native session with the portable pack