Coven Documentation

Uninstall reference for the Coven CLI across npm global installs, Cargo/source builds, and local state under COVEN_HOME.

Use this page to remove the Coven CLI. Removing the CLI and deleting local state are separate steps — do the first for a routine uninstall, and the second only when you intentionally want to erase session history.

Stop The Daemon First

The daemon holds the local socket and owns running sessions. Stop it before removing the CLI so nothing is left listening:

coven sessions --all --plain
coven daemon status
coven daemon stop

If sessions are still running, let them finish, kill them, or archive them first. Removing the CLI does not clean up a daemon that is already running.

Remove The Install

Remove the CLI using the same method you installed with.

npm global install

npm uninstall -g @opencoven/cli

If you used npx/pnpm dlx for one-off runs, there is nothing to uninstall — clearing your package manager cache is enough to drop the downloaded copy.

Cargo / source build

If you installed the Rust binary with cargo install:

cargo uninstall coven-cli

If you only ran cargo build/cargo run from a cloned checkout, deleting the checkout removes the build:

rm -rf coven   # the cloned OpenCoven/coven directory

Native binary

If you placed a native binary on PATH yourself, delete that file. Confirm nothing remains:

which -a coven

Verify Removal

which -a coven

No output means the command is gone. If a path still prints, another install is still present — remove it with the matching method above.

Local State

Coven keeps local state under COVEN_HOME (default ~/.coven), including session history, events, and the daemon socket. Uninstalling the CLI does not delete this directory.

Deleting local state is irreversible

rm -rf ~/.coven permanently deletes your local session history and events. Do this only when you intend to erase all local Coven data, not as a routine uninstall or update step.

Remove local state only when you deliberately want it gone:

rm -rf ~/.coven

If you set a custom COVEN_HOME, remove that path instead of ~/.coven.

Reinstalling Later

Removing the CLI while keeping ~/.coven lets you reinstall later and pick up your existing sessions:

npm install -g @opencoven/cli@latest
coven doctor

See Install Coven for full install paths and Install Debugging if the reinstall does not produce a working coven command.

Uninstall

On this page