mid-flight

On-demand consultation with Codex or Gemini at any point during development. Get a second opinion when you're stuck, validate an approach before committing to it, or sanity-check an architecture decision — without leaving your Claude Code session.

A Claude Code plugin that provides ad-hoc consultations with the Codex or Gemini CLI.

Companion to pre-flight, which reviews plans automatically. MidFlight is for everything that happens after planning.

How it works

1. You're mid-development and want a second opinion
2. Run /midflight should we use WebSockets or SSE here? (or just /midflight and Claude figures out what to ask)
3. Claude summarizes the current context and question
4. The query is sent to your configured provider (Codex or Gemini)
5. Claude presents the external model's perspective alongside its own analysis

No transcript parsing, no hooks — Claude already has full context, so it writes a concise summary and question directly.

How it's different from pre-flight

	pre-flight	mid-flight
Trigger	Automatic (ExitPlanMode hook)	Manual (/midflight) or Claude-initiated
Context	Plan file (extracted from transcript)	Claude's own summary (already has full context)
Purpose	Catch plan issues before approval	Get unstuck, validate approaches, second opinions
Mechanism	Hook + deny/retry pattern	Skill (slash command) + query script

Consult vs Implement

MidFlight automatically infers whether you need advice or implementation:

• Consult (default) — "Should we use X or Y?", debugging help, architecture validation. The external model provides advice without modifying files.
• Implement — Precise, spec-driven changes: "Add method X to file Y with these exact signatures." The external model reads files, makes edits, and runs verification.

You don't need to specify which mode — Claude classifies intent from the query. When uncertain, it defaults to consult (safe by default).

Requirements

• Claude Code CLI
• One of the following providers:
  • Codex CLI installed and authenticated (default)
  • Gemini CLI installed and authenticated
• bash in your PATH

Install

claude plugin marketplace add Abeansits/mid-flight
claude plugin install mid-flight@mid-flight

Restart Claude Code after installing.

Config

Create ~/.config/mid-flight/config to override defaults:

provider=codex
codex_model=gpt-5.3-codex
codex_reasoning_effort=high
gemini_model=gemini-2.5-pro

Setting	Default	Description
provider	codex	Query provider (codex or gemini)
codex_model	gpt-5.3-codex	Codex model to use
codex_reasoning_effort	high	Reasoning effort (low/medium/high)
gemini_model	gemini-2.5-pro	Gemini model to use

Separate config from pre-flight so you can use different models/settings for ad-hoc queries vs plan reviews.

Usage

# Ask a specific question
/midflight should we use WebSockets or SSE for real-time updates?

# No question — Claude identifies what needs a second opinion
/midflight

# Claude can also self-invoke when it recognizes it's stuck
# (after 3+ failed attempts, unfamiliar technology, etc.)

Updating

claude plugin marketplace update mid-flight
claude plugin update mid-flight@mid-flight

Uninstall

claude plugin remove mid-flight
claude plugin marketplace remove mid-flight

Restart Claude Code after uninstalling.

Troubleshooting

Error	Cause	Fix
'codex' CLI not found	Codex CLI not installed or not in PATH	Install from github.com/openai/codex
'gemini' CLI not found	Gemini CLI not installed or not in PATH	Install from github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli
Codex query failed	Auth issue or network error	Run codex --version to verify install, check API key
Empty response	Provider returned nothing	Try again or switch providers in config

Debugging

Run Claude Code with claude --debug to see query execution logs. All logs are prefixed with [mid-flight] on stderr and include mode, provider, query size, response size, and duration.

Technical details

Architecture

MidFlight is a skill-based plugin (slash command), not a hook-based plugin like pre-flight. This is a deliberate design choice:

• Skills run inside Claude's context — Claude already knows everything about the current task, so there's no need for transcript parsing
• Claude summarizes, not transcript extraction — produces better, more focused context than any parsing could
• On-demand, not automatic — the user (or Claude itself) decides when a consultation would be valuable

Query flow

1. /midflight invokes the skill, which instructs Claude to assess the situation
2. Claude writes a structured query (context + question) to a temp file
3. The query script (scripts/query.sh) reads the file, wraps it with a system prompt, and routes to the configured provider
4. The provider's response is returned to Claude via stdout
5. Claude presents the response with its own analysis (agreements, disagreements, recommended next steps)

Provider abstraction

Same pattern as pre-flight: separate functions (query_codex, query_gemini) behind a config-driven router. Adding a new provider requires only a new function and case branch.

Self-invocation

The skill prompt includes guidance for when Claude should consider consulting an external model on its own — e.g., after multiple failed debugging attempts, when facing unfamiliar technology, or when two approaches seem equally valid. When self-invoking, Claude is instructed to be transparent about why.

License

MIT