#420 skill-installer and skill-creator still default to ~/.codex/skills while current docs point users toward ~/.agents/skills

Summary

The current installed skill-installer and skill-creator system skills in Codex Desktop still describe and implement installation into $CODEX_HOME/skills, defaulting to ~/.codex/skills, while current public Codex/Agent Skills guidance points users toward the newer .agents/skills convention.

This creates confusion when users try to understand which directory is canonical for user-installed skills, especially now that Codex Desktop also creates/uses ~/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json for plugins.

Observed local behavior

On a Windows Codex Desktop install after applying the latest available patch:

CODEX_HOME is unset
C:\Users\georg\.agents exists
C:\Users\georg\.agents\plugins\marketplace.json exists
C:\Users\georg\.agents\skills does not exist

The installed system skill path is:

C:\Users\georg\.codex\skills\.system\skill-installer

The system skill documentation still says:

Installs into $CODEX_HOME/skills/<skill-name> (defaults to ~/.codex/skills).

The installer script still implements:

def _codex_home() -> str:
    return os.environ.get("CODEX_HOME", os.path.expanduser("~/.codex"))

def _default_dest() -> str:
    return os.path.join(_codex_home(), "skills")

The skill-creator system skill similarly tells users that if no location is specified it will create skills under $CODEX_HOME/skills, falling back to ~/.codex/skills.

Why this matters

Users now see both directories:

~/.codex/skills      # populated with system/user skills
~/.agents/plugins    # plugin marketplace metadata
~/.agents/skills     # expected by newer open-agent convention but absent locally

This makes it unclear whether newly installed user skills should live in .codex/skills or .agents/skills, and whether .codex/skills is legacy, system-managed, user-managed, or both.

It also interacts poorly with duplicate-skill/disabling behavior. A user may disable a project-local skill in the GUI while a global copy installed under ~/.codex/skills remains active.

Related Codex Desktop UX issue filed here:

openai/codex#23987

Expected behavior

Please clarify one of the following in the skills catalog/tooling:

If ~/.codex/skills is still the supported install target for Codex Desktop, document it explicitly as current behavior and explain how it relates to .agents/skills.
If ~/.agents/skills is the intended user-skill target going forward, update skill-installer, skill-creator, and their helper scripts to default there, or clearly describe the migration period.
If both are supported, document precedence, duplicate handling, and how the GUI enable/disable controls apply to skills from each root.

Environment

Platform: Windows
App: Codex Desktop
CODEX_HOME: unset
Installed system skill timestamp after patch: 2026-05-21 18:55 local
Current default installer target observed: C:\Users\georg\.codex\skills