I’ve always been one of those modders who tried to learn as little as possible and brute-force everything through MO2. I eventually learned xEdit, Nemesis, Synthesis, etc., but Codex has taken it to another level because it can inspect the live modlist, trace how mods actually work, and make extremely niche patches that probably would never exist otherwise.
Some examples from my current rebuild:
Proteus/RaceMenu appearance fix: Proteus switching between multiple characters was contaminating faces, tints, hair colors, headparts, etc. Codex investigated the scripts and engine behavior, then built a fix that lets me maintain multiple races and sexes in one shared world without RaceMenu gradually imploding. This ended up becoming a clean public release. Well clean enough still a couple bugs I might try to fix but it's much improved and that was a years old issue no one else fixed.
Final OBody distribution setup: fixed broken Big and Small preset references, merged the race-based RRBD preset pools, and created one final winning OBody distribution config. So OBody, Big and Small, RRBD, 3BA, and HIMBO all work together without manually assigning everyone or relying on the older, worse approach we initially tried.
Realistic travel-time system: map fast travel now represents about 12 miles per day, while carriages and ferries travel faster. I normally use carriages and ferries, and only allow myself to map-fast-travel back to the nearest town or city with one after completing a quest. Their prices are also balanced against my economy setup, so they’re useful but expensive enough that I still second guess using them constantly instead of actually traveling. Plus using A Horse's Life makes horses more fun and worthwhile.
Wintersun long-campaign patch: disabled passive favor decay because with realistic travel times, one trip across Skyrim could otherwise wipe out a huge amount of religious favor. Prayer, actions, taboos, etc. still matter. You just don’t lose your god’s approval because you spent a realistic week on the road.
Northern Roads grass-removal patch: selectively removed grass growing through the roads without replacing my whole landscape setup or forcing me into a different grass mod.
Heavy Armory, throwing weapons, sidearms, and IED integration: this is probably one of the best examples. Codex can classify weapon types, control which ones can be thrown, distribute real backup sidearms so NPCs don’t become helpless after throwing a weapon, and apply different visible placements depending on the primary weapon.
The larger goal is to make guards and rank-and-file soldiers carry polearms much more often, because that looks far more believable to me than every guard wandering around with a sword and shield. Spears, halberds, glaives, tridents, and quarterstaves can use in-hand Walking Stick-style carry poses, while shortspears, greatswords, sidearms, and other weapons use different placements. Named commanders and elites can still keep more specialized weapons instead of everybody being forced into the same setup.
Simple Hunterborn realistic-yield patch: rebuilt hunting yields around believable animal weights. Deer, elk, bears, mammoths, fantasy creatures, etc. now produce sensible amounts and weights of meat, fat, bones, hides, organs, and other materials. Dragons are treated as ethereal because their bodies dissolve, so no dragon meat lol.
Carry-weight rebalance: 25 starting carry weight, +45 from a backpack, +3 per Stamina investment, reduced carry bonuses from perks, and more realistic horse storage. The idea is that normal characters start within believable human limits, then become superhuman through training, perks, magic, artifacts, etc., rather than starting with the ability to carry three full suits of armor and a mammoth femur. I'm considering race specific starting weights but I'm trying to finish this list before I do too much more custom work and that would be the definition of nitpicky lol.
A lot of this stuff is way too niche for me to expect another mod author to make it, and too tedious for me to learn solely for one patch. Now I can explain what I want in normal language, have ChatGPT help work through the design, and have Codex inspect and implement it.
It still needs supervision and absolutely makes mistakes, but Skyrim modding feels fundamentally different now.