Claude Ask

Claude Ask is an open-source Codex plugin that asks a locally authenticated Claude Code model for an independent second opinion.

It provides three MCP tools:

• ask starts a persistent asynchronous Claude Fable or Opus job;

• ask_status reports progress and returns the final answer;

• cancel_ask explicitly cancels a job.

For repository reviews, ask accepts an explicit absolute workspace. Claude runs from that directory with only the built-in Read, Glob, and Grep tools. It cannot run shell commands or edit files. Without workspace, Claude receives no tools.

Install in Codex

Add this Git repository as a marketplace and install the plugin:

codex plugin marketplace add AbsoluteMode/claude-ask
codex plugin add claude-ask@absolutmode

Start a new Codex thread after installation so the new skill and MCP tool schema are loaded.

Related MCP server: claude-cli-mcp

Requirements

• Codex with plugin support;

• Node.js 22 or newer;

• Claude Code installed at ~/.local/bin/claude, or CLAUDE_ASK_CLI set to another executable;

• an authenticated Claude Code session.

Security model

• The prompt is transferred over stdin, never argv or environment variables.

• Job directories use mode 0700; job files use 0600.

• Workspace access is explicit per job and canonicalized before launch.

• Workspace jobs expose only Read, Glob, and Grep.

• There is no automatic elapsed-time or idle timeout.

• Jobs survive an MCP server restart and are retained for 24 hours by default.

• At most four jobs run concurrently by default.

See the plugin documentation for protocol and configuration details.

Development

npm test

The default test uses a fake Claude executable and consumes no model usage. An explicit live smoke test is available after Claude authentication:

npm run test:live

License

MIT