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Claude Code Harness

Claude Code harness deep dive: setup, provider auth, launch arguments, project-root behavior, and troubleshooting.

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Claude Code is Anthropic's coding-agent CLI. Coven launches it as a project-rooted PTY and records the run as a Coven session.

FieldValue
Harness idclaude
Executableclaude
Installnpm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
Provider authclaude doctor
First runcoven run claude "polish this UI"

Setup

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude doctor
coven doctor

coven doctor checks that claude is available on PATH. It does not read Anthropic credentials.

Launch

coven run claude "refactor this component" --cwd packages/web --title "Web refactor"

In interactive terminals, Coven launches Claude Code with the prompt as the final argument. In non-interactive mode, Coven uses Claude Code's --print shape so output can be captured by callers.

Supervision flow

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Common failures

SymptomLikely causeFix
coven doctor reports Claude Code missingclaude is not on daemon PATHInstall Claude Code, restart daemon, rerun doctor.
Claude prompts for setupProvider auth is incompleteRun claude doctor.
Launch rejects cwd--cwd escapes the project rootUse a cwd inside the project.

For shared setup rules, see Install harness CLIs and Provider auth boundary.

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