Daemon Commands

The coven daemon commands manage the local background process that serves the /api/v1 API over same-user local IPC and owns live session state.

coven daemon start
coven daemon status
coven daemon restart
coven daemon stop

For the process model and recovery behavior, see Daemon lifecycle.

coven daemon start

Starts the daemon, creates COVEN_HOME if needed, opens the SQLite store, binds the platform local IPC endpoint, and writes daemon metadata.

coven daemon start

Use this before daemon-backed clients or local IPC integrations.

coven daemon status

Prints whether the daemon is running, stale, or stopped.

coven daemon status

Use status in support flows before deleting Unix socket files or restarting manually. Windows uses an owner-only named pipe rather than a socket file.

coven daemon restart

Stops the current daemon when present, then starts a fresh process and rebinds the platform local IPC endpoint.

coven daemon restart

Use this after upgrades, after changing COVEN_HOME, or when coven doctor reports stale daemon metadata.

coven daemon stop

Stops the background daemon process.

coven daemon stop

Stopping the daemon does not delete the session ledger. Completed session records and event logs remain in COVEN_HOME.

Local API relationship

The CLI commands are convenience wrappers around the same local authority boundary described in Daemon lifecycle and Socket API. Clients can improve UX, but the daemon validates sensitive decisions.