OpenAI Codex — Real-World Software Engineering
Lesson 4: Terminal, Git, Pull Requests, and Deployment Boundaries
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
- Understand common terminal and Git operations
- Use commits and pull requests as review boundaries
- Handle merge conflicts and failed commands safely
- Keep deployment, database, and destructive operations under explicit control
Lesson Content
Codex can work through terminal and Git surfaces when authorized. Students should understand basic command effects before approving them. Read command output, especially errors, prompts, package-install scripts, database migrations, and file-deletion operations.
Use branches and pull requests to make change reviewable. A good pull request explains problem, approach, files changed, tests, risks, screenshots where relevant, and rollback. Keep commits logically scoped. Never let an agent hide generated changes in a giant mixed commit.
Production deployment, database migration, credential rotation, billing changes, domain configuration, and destructive cleanup require explicit human approval and often organizational change procedures. Prefer dry runs, staging, backups, migration previews, and rollback plans.
When a terminal command opens an interactive editor or requests a commit message, users can supply the message through the editor, use a non-interactive flag when appropriate, or configure toolingâ€"but should understand the command rather than blindly pasting escape sequences.
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