How do I override a blocking finding I disagree with in a challenger session?

Tares lets you override a blocking finding with /tares:challenger-waive, which lists the blocking findings and waives one or all of them. The waiver is remembered for that finding on later rounds and shipped to Tares as a challenge_waived event. If you want commit findings to stop blocking altogether, set the plugin option challenger_mode to advise.

How it works

In a challenger session, the OpenAI Codex CLI on your laptop reviews each commit Claude Code makes and critiques the plan when Claude leaves plan mode. Codex tags each finding as [P1], [P2] or [P3].

• On a commit, [P1] and [P2] findings block. Claude is told to fix them and fold the fix into the same commit with git commit --amend, or into a new commit when the reviewed one is already on a remote. The amended commit is reviewed again as round 2, and so on.
• [P3] findings are context only and never block.
• On a plan, only [P1] counts as blocking, and even then Claude is asked to revise or to tell you why it disagrees.
• A Codex timeout, error or inconclusive review never blocks.
• The fix loop is capped at 8 rounds per commit and 5 turn ends per session. After that, the findings come back as context instead.

When you disagree with a blocking finding, /tares:challenger-waive lists the current blocking findings. You choose one finding to waive, or all of them. Tares records the waiver for that finding, so later rounds do not raise it again as a blocker. The plugin ships a challenge_waived event with a finding_count label into the claude_code source, next to the transcript and carrying flow=challenger.

Waivers, review state, the fix-loop counters and the review history (tares-challenger-reviews.jsonl) live under the repository’s .git/ on your laptop. The challenger runs locally and never waits on Tares, so a Tares that is down or slow does not hold up a waiver. The plugin retries shipping on the next hook.

Set it up

1. Install the Tares plugin for Claude Code, version 0.2 or later, and install and log in to the Codex CLI. The Challenger workflow guide lists the prerequisites. If you have not set up Tares yet, Get started walks through it.
2. Start Claude Code in your project and mark the session by saying “make this a challenger session”, or by typing the slash command below.
3. Let Claude plan and commit. When a commit comes back with blocking findings you disagree with, run the waive command. It lists the blocking findings and lets you waive one or all.
4. Optional: to make commit findings advisory for every session, set the plugin option challenger_mode to advise. The default is strict.
5. To turn the challenger off for the rest of one session, run the off command.

/tares:challenger
/tares:challenger-waive
/tares:challenger off

The plugin options are challenger_mode (strict or advise), codex_bin and codex_sandbox. Only challenger_mode changes how blocking works.

What you get

• You keep control when Codex raises a finding you consider wrong. Claude moves on instead of looping on a finding you have rejected.
• You choose the scope. Waive a single finding and the rest still block, or waive all of them in one step.
• A waived finding does not come back as a blocker on later rounds, so the amend and review loop does not keep reopening it.
• Tares has a record of the decision. Each waiver arrives as a challenge_waived event on the session timeline, with the count of findings waived, alongside the challenge_plan and challenge_commit events.
• With challenger_mode set to advise, you still see every Codex finding, but commit findings no longer send Claude back to fix and amend.

When something else fits

• Use challenger_mode set to advise when you want Codex’s commit findings as input for every session instead of waiving them one by one. Keep the default strict when you want findings to block until someone decides.
• If a finding is [P3], a timeout or an error, you do not need to waive anything, because those never block.
• Read the full flow, including the events and the session summary, in the Challenger workflow guide.

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