Delegate to Codex with a binding independent judge

praetor is a Claude Code plugin that runs a plan → freeze acceptance bar → dispatch → independent fresh-context judge → resolve loop. Claude plans and judges, Codex executes; a FAIL from the judge cannot be overridden, with at most 2 retries before a loud takeover.

Use this when

You want to delegate a well-scoped implementation task to Codex but refuse to trust self-reported success — the merge should only land if an independent judge confirms the frozen acceptance criteria actually pass.

How it runs

1. Plan the task and freeze the acceptance criteria in .codex/ACCEPTANCE.md before any work begins.
2. Isolate on a throwaway branch and write a self-contained brief for Codex.
3. Dispatch execution to Codex.
4. Spawn a fresh-context independent judge that runs the frozen checks against the uncommitted working tree.
5. On PASS, commit and clean up; on FAIL, retry (max 2) then hand back with a loud takeover.

Done when

✓ A fresh-context judge runs every check in .codex/ACCEPTANCE.md against the uncommitted working tree and returns PASS; a FAIL blocks the merge and cannot be overridden.

Why it works

Self-reported success is not success. A binding, fresh-context judge that never sees the planner's reasoning and cannot be talked out of a FAIL turns "the code looks right" into "the checks actually pass" — the gate is the product.

Implementation note

Three iron laws are product law: frozen acceptance bar before dispatch; binding judge (FAIL cannot be overridden); max 2 retries then loud takeover. Consent model is announce-then-act with a plain-language veto and a STOP file.

Source: luoxianzi/praetor ↗graded B · 80/100 — how grades work →

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