In this module, we’ll test the SWE (Software Engineering) Agent using GPT-4.1 & Codex, exploring its ability to reason, interact with GitHub, and execute code-related tasks in a real environment.

  • Goal: Set up xpander.ai access and deploy the coding agent template
  • Prerequisites: xpander.ai account, basic agent concepts

​
Quick Setup

​
Template Import

To avoid manual configuration work around adding tools, setting instructions, etc. A SWE agent template is ready to be deployed on the platform. After clicking the Template import button, you will register or login to xpander.ai, and be redirected to the template deployment screen.

Import Codex SWE Agent to your xpander.ai Account

Follow the import steps as seen in the video:

  1. In the agent import wizard, select “New Github Pull Requests interface”
  2. The excalamation mark (⚠️) on the Github tools indicates that the Connector for Github has not been authorized yet. Click on one of them to see the connector settings.
  3. In the popup window, connect to Github with Oauth2.

​
Your coding agent

You are now seeing the AI Workbench - a user interface used to design, deploy, test and observe agents.

The left side of the AI Workbench can be used to easily intract with your agent and see how it behaves in real time - we will do that in a minute.

The right side is a visual representation of your agent or multi-agent team, including its different triggering capabilities and its available tools.

Check out the available tools your agent has. It can interact with GitHub - listing, creating, updating, and commenting on pull requests. More importantly, it can code using the built-in Coding agent, built on an enhanced version of Codex CLI.

​
Test your agent using the visual AI Workbench

Let’s walk through a real GitHub workflow using your agent. We’ll use the xpander-ai/apps-by-agents repository and test out some core capabilities.

​
Test 1: The agent’s capabilities

In the left tab of the AI Workbench (Tester tab), submit this prompt:

What can you do ?

What’s with the purple pulsing dot? 🟣

You are seeing one of most useful parts of the AI Workbench - a visual indication of the AI Agent’s path traversal - through other agents (in multi-agent setups) and through tools.

Basically, the purple pulsing dot indicates the current state of the agent on the state machine.

​
Test 2: List Pull Requests

In the left tab of the AI Workbench (Tester tab), submit this prompt:

List all pull requests (open or closed) in "xpander-ai/apps-by-agents"

​
Test 3: Summarize the Latest PR

Explain the most recent pull request and what the code changes do.

​
What’s Next?

Your Coding Agent is now live and connected - it can generate code with Codex and interact with GitHub.

→ Proceed to Module 2: Frontend Build & Testing to connect a minimal OpenAI Codex-style UI to interact with your agent, track its tasks, etc.