Chronos gives Windows Codex users one local Governor for passive task supervision, actionable Heartbeats, exact-target intervention, and bounded read-only worker coordination. It also diagnoses runaway auto-review, approval loops, quota and context pressure, broken permission rules, rollout duplication, diagnostic SQLite churn, and Windows process degradation. Routine worker tasks stay passive. Chronos sends no publisher telemetry.
One complete caller-aware host inventory per Governor cycle is the task-discovery
and liveness authority. It is not a health report. Heartbeat evaluation uses a
separate normalized collector snapshot with explicit coverage for all eight
families. Missing evidence stays partial or unsupported.
Lifecycle hooks are an optional accelerator: a Windows host may show them as
active and trusted without dispatching them. Missing hook execution never
disables autonomous discovery or asks the user to register tasks.
Chronos is published by Dravara, LLC. FaxanFM is the GitHub project account
used to develop and distribute it.
Install Chronos for Codex from the OpenAI Plugins Directory
The currently approved directory package is live. Chronos is available to eligible users across plans, including Free, subject to region, supported surface, workspace controls, and role. Directory publication permits distribution; it is not an OpenAI endorsement or support commitment.
Manual Git marketplace fallback for environments where the Directory is not available:
codex.cmd plugin marketplace add FaxanFM/chronos
codex.cmd plugin add chronos@chronosAfter any install or upgrade, fully quit and reopen Codex. Then open a fresh task and ask:
Set up Chronos: verify source, create one Governor, explain hooks, and prove Heartbeat coverage and zero worker recurrences.
Do not install both sources. Codex identifies the same package as
chronos@chronos in the Git marketplace and chronos@openai-curated-remote in
the OpenAI Plugins Directory. They are separate source identities and the
Directory install does not replace the Git install in an already loaded task.
Chronos v0.9.2 distinguishes a confirmed enabled-source conflict from cached
packages that may be stale. After it confirms the running Directory package
and enabled legacy Git source, remove the legacy source through the plugin
manager. Then fully quit and reopen Codex before starting a fresh task:
codex.cmd plugin remove chronos@chronos
codex.cmd plugin marketplace remove chronosChronos uses a nonempty CODEX_HOME as the local installation boundary. If it
is unset, Chronos uses the current user's .codex directory. Canonical aliases
of one Codex home share supervision, Heartbeat, and lock identity; different
Codex homes on the same PC remain isolated. Invalid or inaccessible overrides
fail closed before Chronos creates state. Chronos also rejects a reparse point
in any CODEX_HOME path component, including an ancestor junction. Unscoped
state from releases before CODEX_HOME isolation is considered only when
Chronos uses the default .codex home. An explicit or environment-provided
home never imports that shared legacy state.
The image is a synthetic, sanitized example. It contains no machine, account, task, repository, or session identifiers.
Chronos sends no install, usage, or diagnostic telemetry to its publisher or a third party. Its bounded local state is described below. Public signals are always opt-in:
Projects that use Chronos can link back with this optional badge:
[](https://github.com/FaxanFM/chronos)Never publish raw diagnostic files, Governor state, rollout data, SQLite files, paths, identifiers, prompts, commands, credentials, or private source.
- Reports machine health separately from resource, quota, rule, and overall diagnostic levels.
- Identifies resource accumulation associated with long-running Codex degradation.
- Detects high-frequency Codex SQLite log churn and unreclaimed database space.
- Warns when the Windows filesystem helper is degrading and advises a full PC restart when the helper becomes unusable.
- Separates cached reads from cache writes only when the runtime exposes that field and flags quota amplification from large contexts, high reasoning, subagents, and repeated compaction.
- Counts actual automatic-review turns from structured
turn_contextrecords, distinguishes them from bookkeeping, and reports only bounded aggregate review and rollout-growth observations. - Separates approval persistence failures, repeated permission-rule misses, and legitimate boundary volume; reports reviewer escalations without calling them recursion unless nested reviewer lineage is directly observed.
- Audits brittle, overbroad, and credential-shaped Codex permission rules without returning rule text or values, and measures full-history worker forks, effort, task age, and lineage concentration.
- Recommends the safest next step for the current condition.
- Evaluates eight opt-in Heartbeat families for agent stalls, runaway review, unusual usage burn, session growth, test regressions, machine drift, task dependencies, and Git or build-state changes.
- Suppresses unchanged Heartbeat conditions and sends only new, resolved, or materially worse transitions to one Governor inbox. Normal cycles do not wake monitored tasks. When action is required, the Governor sends one fixed, bounded instruction to the exact verified affected task. Stable event IDs, one active intervention per target generation, and bounded retries prevent wake storms.
- Reconciles every task from one complete bounded host inventory inside each Governor cycle. If the host list omits its caller, schema v2 accounts for the known Governor inside that same call. The native result returns hash-only normalized task statuses; routine cycles do not wake monitored tasks.
- Treats an isolated modest Governor-cycle overrun as normal runtime variance. Only sustained or material self-degradation causes a 15-minute collector backoff, and compact status explains the budget, baseline, overrun, and reason.
- Registers optional task activity and subagent lifecycle hints through five
reviewed headless hooks. Four request asynchronous execution where supported;
SessionEndremains synchronous. The completed-turn signal has no worker recurrence, model call, transcript read, or model-visible output. Brief registry contention uses a bounded protected fallback that the next Governor status removes after merging. - Reuses one host-verified Chronos Governor or creates a fresh history-free Governor task. It never automatically forks a large working task.
- Routes bounded exploration, review, and verification to read workers. Shared-folder write delegation is disabled.
- Discovers worker models from the active runtime instead of assuming a model.
- Coordinates canonical workspace identity, fenced expiring advisory leases, attempt budgets, Git-visible read-mutation checks, and final coordinator verification.
Chronos mitigates local symptoms. It does not change SQLite rows or schemas,
terminate Codex or unrelated user processes, or block active work. Governor can
stop only the bounded Git subprocess it started when fingerprinting exceeds its
time or byte limit. Its logical read-only SQLite
connection can create or update SQLite -wal or -shm coordination sidecars;
the result reports whether that activity was observed.
For the normal Directory installation, use the link above. If the Directory is not available in the current Codex surface, ask Codex to:
Analyze and install FaxanFM/chronos, then use Chronos Governor for appropriate low-complexity repository tasks.
Or install the Git fallback manually:
codex.cmd plugin marketplace add FaxanFM/chronos
codex.cmd plugin add chronos@chronosFully quit and reopen Codex after installation or upgrade, then open a fresh
task. A running process or task can retain the versioned plugin skill locator
captured before the change and advertise a cache path removed by the upgrade
even though the new version is installed correctly. Do not copy or link new
plugin files into an old version directory; restart, use a fresh task, and
verify the installed version.
Run chronos.cmd -Action install-status to check for duplicate valid cached
sources. The result deliberately labels this as cache inventory, not proof of
enabled state.
Chronos is published in the shared OpenAI Plugins Directory for ChatGPT and Codex. The marketplace commands are a fallback for environments where the directory listing is not available. See the published listing record for the verified and unknown publication facts.
For complete setup, use the first starter prompt or ask:
Set up Chronos: verify source, create one Governor, explain hooks, and prove
Heartbeat coverage and zero worker recurrences.
Chronos verifies the package source and native status, reuses or creates one dedicated Governor, reports whether the eight Heartbeat families are observed, partial, or unsupported, and proves that worker tasks have no recurrence. It does not call prior-state status a new evaluation. Before initialization, it pauses or removes only Governor recurrences carrying this installation's verified key and proves zero active current-key matches; foreign or unverified keys are untouched. It creates or reconciles the single Governor recurrence only after supervision and Heartbeat state are readable and one complete caller-aware host inventory accounts for the verified Governor exactly once. Any failed or partial setup pauses or removes every current-key recurrence, including one that existed before the attempt, and verifies zero current-key Chronos recurrences. A verified concurrent loser leaves the winner unchanged and stands down. Normal Codex hook trust is optional for autonomous discovery. If Codex presents a trust request, only the user can approve it; Chronos proceeds through one complete host inventory per Governor cycle whether the hooks are trusted or dispatched.
For an on-demand diagnostic without enabling supervision, ask:
Run a Chronos health briefing: inspect PC, quota, reviews, rules, SQLite,
Heartbeat coverage; separate evidence from unknowns.
Optionally review and trust the packaged lifecycle hooks through Codex /hooks.
Worker tasks need no script or prompt and can use Luna, Terra, Sol, or another
runtime model. Setup explicitly enables at most one Governor turn per hour
while work is active and one every six hours while idle. The Governor rotates
or pauses after 336 cycles or 14 days. A stable pseudonymous installation-scoped
equivalence key, deterministic winner order, and three-attempt reconciliation
budget keep simultaneous setup attempts on that PC converged on one task and one recurrence.
Different PCs retain separate Governors for their separate local registries.
Only the first two Governor pulses repeat that check; normal cycles do not.
Only that task owns host recurrence. It discovers task starts, completed turns,
ends, and subagent lifecycle changes from a small encrypted local registry,
then reconciles one compact host
inventory as the liveness authority. If hooks are disabled, that inventory is
the automatic fallback; the user does not register tasks or relay routine
findings. See
Supervision for setup, routing, usage, and privacy limits.
Chronos includes five small lifecycle hooks. SessionStart records a task start,
resume, clear, or compaction. Stop records one completed main-task turn.
SessionEnd records the task end. SubagentStart and SubagentStop record
worker lifecycle changes.
The hooks run headless and return no text to the model. Four request asynchronous
execution when the host supports it. SessionEnd is synchronous so the final
event has a bounded chance to finish before shutdown. Every hook has a
three-second host timeout. The configured command starts a small intake script,
not the full supervision engine. Intake validates the host event, protects task
and agent IDs for the current Windows user, writes one durable event to a
CODEX_HOME-scoped inbox, and exits. The next supervision status or Governor
cycle merges the event exactly once while it owns the registry mutex, then
removes it. Each bounded receipt binds the inbox slot hash to the exact event
hash. Both inboxes are scanned before receipts are pruned, so a committed event
cannot replay when Windows blocks deletion or another queue fills the processing
window. A temporarily unreadable file is deferred intact. Undecryptable or
malformed records are counted once, removed after the degraded state is saved,
and never block host-inventory fallback. Direct
diagnostic hooks use the same protected pending-event format when the registry
is busy.
Hooks do not read prompts, transcripts, source files, diffs, commands, tool output, or credentials. They store only bounded local coordination data such as protected task identifiers, workspace and generation hashes, a model label, lifecycle state, and timestamps. They do not create worker turns or recurrences.
Hooks are an optional accelerator, not the source of truth. The Governor still
uses one complete host task inventory per cycle for discovery and liveness. The
user controls hook trust through Codex /hooks; Chronos never approves trust on
the user's behalf. Installed or trusted status shows configuration only. Chronos
reports hook execution as observed only after native status records a new hook
run. If a bounded hook cannot persist an event, it stays silent and the next
complete inventory remains authoritative.
Heartbeats use the same Governor and recurrence created by full setup. The Codex host owns the recurring schedule and model choice. Chronos does not install a service or scheduler. Monitored tasks can use any model and do not run Heartbeats. Each due cycle compares one bounded normalized snapshot with compact local state. A cycle with no actionable transition ends silently. All events enter one Governor inbox. The Governor verifies one exact live target, coalesces simultaneous events for that task, and communicates directly through host task tools. It does not ask the user to relay routine remediation. A task reply remains pending until Chronos or an independent host check verifies the postcondition. Governor self-usage changes only the Governor recurrence after the host verifies the new cadence; it never causes a self-message or a routine user chore. Chronos does not infer cost or quota impact from model names. See Heartbeats for the collector contract, coverage limits, routing, delivery, deduplication, and stored fields.
To delegate a small repository task, ask:
Use Chronos Governor to split this repo review into bounded read tasks, verify
each result, and keep edits and decisions here.
Governor validates the worker models advertised by the active runtime and
preflights Multi-Agent V2 before reserving a plan. Without safe V2 support it
completes and verifies the work in the coordinator task without spawning or
canceling a worker plan. With V2 available, it
selects deterministically from that inventory. It sends focused read-only
assignments with fork_turns=none. It is a coordination aid, not a sandbox or
security boundary; all edits, integration, publishing, and final acceptance
remain with the coordinator.
See Codex Token and Quota Findings for the source-backed GPT-5.6 findings and conservative local settings. See Efficiency Governor for bounded approval-review and rollout-amplification observations, their coverage rules, and hard safety limits. See Builder Requirements for the consolidated handoff ledger and explicit unavailable and calibration boundaries. See Chronos Governor for routing, limits, contracts, state, and verification behavior. See Supervision for passive task discovery and the single-Governor bootstrap contract. See Architecture, Test Coverage, Release Operations, and Calibration Methodology for the current safety and release model. See v0.7.0 Audit Response for the sanitized fixed, contained, and deferred finding disposition. See v0.7.1 Delta Audit Response for the follow-up security, parser, release, and discovery fixes. See v0.7.6 Final Audit Response for the focused v0.7.7 correctness repairs and validation boundary.
- Inspector and Governor commands run when requested. After explicit opt-in, five silent monitoring hooks and one host Governor recurrence can run automatically.
- Does not transmit telemetry or retain raw prompts, responses, source, diffs, commands, tool output, credentials, usernames, or absolute paths. It retains only the bounded local pseudonymous coordination metadata described below.
- Never blocks, pauses, or ends a Codex task.
- Never terminates Codex or unrelated user processes and never deletes user files. Governor can stop only its own bounded Git fingerprint subprocess.
- Opens the known Codex diagnostic database in logical read-only mode and never
installs triggers, deletes rows, checkpoints, or vacuums it. SQLite can still
create or update
-walor-shmcoordination sidecars; Chronos reports the open mode, journal mode, whether sidecar mutation was possible, and whether it was observed. - Reads bounded 2 MiB tails of up to eight recently active rollout files selected by modification time for structured aggregate token, effort, automatic-review, compaction, subagent, rollout-duplication, and parser-integrity counts.
- Reads supported files only in the known Codex rules directory to return aggregate rule-health and secret-shape counts; rule text, prefixes, hashes, assignments, and values are never returned.
- Never returns prompts, responses, tool arguments, tool output, usernames, or absolute local paths. Governor verification may return repository-relative changed paths.
- Creates no operating-system scheduled task, service, publisher telemetry, or persistent log. Five reviewed plugin hooks store bounded task lifecycle and completed-turn hints. A recurring Codex automation exists only when the user explicitly enables supervision or Heartbeats through the host. Setup reconciles duplicates, and release stops the recurrence before clearing local ownership.
- Stores lifecycle task and agent IDs encrypted for the current Windows user; raw transcripts and workspace paths are never stored. DPAPI does not isolate data from another process already running as that user. The temporary contention fallback uses the same protected or hashed metadata and no raw path. Host task tools remain the liveness authority.
- Stores one random, non-secret 128-bit installation ID with no machine-derived data so host reconciliation remains scoped to this PC after registry recovery.
- An invoked Heartbeat cycle stores bounded per-scope transition, coverage, cadence, deduplication, hashed delivery/outbox, intervention, and health metadata in the user's local Chronos application-data directory. It does not persist raw snapshots, prompts, responses, commands, source, paths, credentials, or tool output.
- When Governor is invoked, stores only untrusted local coordination metadata beneath the current user's Windows temporary application-data directory: opaque IDs, identity hashes, base commit, relative scopes, model labels, lease fencing, counters, status, and timestamps.
- Governor shared-folder write delegation is disabled; read-only checks cover a Git-visible projection and do not prove that no other filesystem effect occurred.
- Never automatically merges, resets, cleans, deletes worktrees or branches, or accepts a worker result without coordinator verification.
See Privacy, Terms, and Support.
MIT