Core concepts

Coven is not a harness

Coven is the local runtime around a coding-agent CLI. A harness such as Codex or Claude Code owns its model, provider authentication, and in-process tools. Coven owns the project boundary, PTY lifecycle, session record, and local API.

Project boundary

Each session has a canonical project root and an optional working directory inside it. Clients can suggest those values, but the daemon validates them before launch. A harness cannot widen the workspace by passing another path.

Session record

A session is the durable record of one harness run: its identity, project, harness, status, timestamps, output events, and exit details. You can attach to a live session, replay a completed one, archive it, or deliberately delete it.

Local authority

The daemon is one same-user process per COVEN_HOME profile. It owns live PTYs and the SQLite-backed session ledger, then serves the supported /api/v1 contract over a Unix socket on Unix-like hosts or an owner-only named pipe on Windows. The CLI and other local clients ask it to act; they do not become the enforcement boundary.

Provider boundary

Coven does not collect or proxy provider credentials. Authenticate with the harness or its provider, then let Coven supervise the resulting local process. This keeps provider choice separate from session governance.

Read Harnesses, Daemon, or the local API when you need the implementation detail.