# The Codex Migration Playbook
Switch from Claude to Codex. Build 12 Projects. Turn Your New Stack Into Paid Work.

- Price: $12.99 (Kindle ebook)
- Level: Intermediate
- Pages: 176
- Best for: Devs migrating from Claude to Codex
- You finish with: 12 shipped projects, a published Skill, and a rate card in 30 days
- Buy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4wlp484
- Web page: https://youcanbuildthings.com/books/openai-codex-playbook

## What you get

You opened Claude Code this morning and felt it: the tool that used to feel like magic now feels crowded, expensive, and unpredictable. This is the 30-day Codex migration sprint. Day 1: 5-tool stack installed and a real session log on disk. Day 7: deployable SaaS at a live URL with a Stripe test charge. Day 14: a weekly quota tracker that keeps your workflow productive. Day 21: a published Codex Skill. Day 30: twelve shipped projects, a rate card, and a credibility kit you can use to start paid client conversations. Switch the stack. Build the projects. Turn the migration into paid work.

Most AI coding books stop at prompts, CLI setup, and generic productivity advice. This one is built around shipped artifacts: parsers, dashboards, Skills, routing layers, SaaS projects, recovery playbooks, and portfolio pieces that prove you can use Codex in the real world. The goal is not to "learn Codex." The goal is to migrate with receipts: twelve real projects, a published Skill, a deployed app, a rate card, and the offer you use to start paid client conversations.

## Chapters

1. The $80/Month Migration: Why r/codex is leaving the $100 Claude plan and what the receipts actually show.
2. How Codex Thinks: Background Compute, Not Chat: The mental model shift: from chatbot to background agent that finishes tasks while you sleep.
3. Pricing Decoded: What "5x Plus" Actually Costs: Six prompts, $15.41. The token math behind Codex Plus, Pro, and the $200 plan, plus a parser that turns your session logs into a dollar ledger.
4. Set Up the 5-Tool Codex Stack: Install commands, real package names, working configs: the stack the 773-upvote thread promised.
5. Ship Your First Real App in 4 Hours: Deployable SaaS at a live URL with a Stripe test charge by hour four.
6. Pick the Model: gpt-5.5, gpt-5.4, gpt-5.4-mini, reasoning effort: Which model for which task and how reasoning-effort routing cuts weekly burn 30-50%.
7. The Real Workflow: Permissions, Skills, Parallel Sessions: Three permission profiles, three parallel sessions, five tickets closed in one sleep cycle.
8. Codex Beyond Coding: Artifacts, Computer Use, Image Gen: Artifacts, gpt-image-2, Computer Use, multi-terminal, SSH into devboxes. Codex as the everything-app.
9. Survive the Weekly Limit: $200 Plan vs API Math: When the $200 plan beats API and how to stay productive at 80% of weekly cap with a quota tracker.
10. Get Paid: Skills, Plugins, Consulting, Hackathons: Publish a Codex Skill, land a consulting gig, win a hackathon: the four monetization paths with a rate card.
11. Failure Modes: The 1M Context Rugpull and Other Lies: OpenAI advertised 400K. Codex Desktop reports 258K. Compaction breaks before 220K. A recovery playbook for the bugs you'll hit.
12. What's Next: AWS, Managed Agents, the Marketplace: A multi-provider routing layer (Codex, Claude, OpenCode, Gemini, OpenClaw, local Qwen) that survives the next pricing shock.

## Free guides from this book

- [Build an OpenAI Codex Cost Tracker in 60 Lines](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/openai-codex-cost-tracker.md): An OpenAI Codex cost tracker that parses ~/.codex/sessions/ JSONL and turns every session into a per-task dollar ledger. 60 lines of Python on your machine.
- [GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.4 in OpenAI Codex: A Per-Task Picker](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/gpt-55-vs-gpt-54-codex-model-picker.md): GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.4 in OpenAI Codex. A per-task config.toml that routes 8 task classes to the cheapest model that delivers, with dollar costs and 3.5x savings.
- [Survive OpenAI Codex's Weekly Limit (the graphify Lever)](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/openai-codex-weekly-limit-graphify.md): OpenAI Codex weekly limit fix. graphify cuts the same prompt from 18 reads/74K tokens/$0.45 to 4 reads/22K/$0.14. Same output. The actual lever, measured.
- [The 5-Tool OpenAI Codex Stack: 773-Upvote Post Answered](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/openai-codex-stack.md): The OpenAI Codex stack the 773-upvote r/codex post promised. 5 tools to install, 2 to cut, exact install commands, and the package-name gotchas devs hit.
- [The OpenAI Codex 1M Context Window: 1M Is Really 258K](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/openai-codex-1m-context-window.md): OpenAI Codex 1M context window. Layered: 1M API, 400K advertised, 258,400 reported, ~220K compaction breaks. The real ceiling and the issues that prove it.