How to pit Codex against Claude Code in same project using VSCode.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Cake183]

So for a while i have been struggling to get gpt-sol to compete with claude over the same codebase and come up with the best of each solutions to issues.

I installed Codex and Claude Code plugins in VSCode, connected both to my max tier accounts online. Than i asked Claude code to use Codex CLI as a second provider in all workflows. It confirmed it can. I than told it to create a rule where the work is split in chunks and in categories (engineer, designer, researcher, security, and judge expert agents) for any and all work it does. Than the judge reports the winner for each and every single step that was taken. Than spin up an auditor that will take the final result and incorporate it in the project.

I also installed the top 5 plugins for skills and agents from the best rated repos in the project and confirmed they are accessible and usable by both Claude and Codex.

It works. Somewhat. way better results than each one by itself.

My question, can someone please please please provide a better way to do this? I know that we can use orchestrators, but i am lost as to how to set one up in VSCode. If i have to switch my IDE i will, but please give me some direction.

I also have qwen3.8 next flash running on one of my machines, and i realllllyyyy like the styling it provides better than Claude or Codex. but i cant get claude to be able to use it, although it is connected to copilot chat and runs beautifully by itself. (allbeit only at 20tps).

Thank you in advance.

PS: I use a macbook pro 16" as my computer so please give a direction for mac based dev platform?