Custom Adapters
Guidance for adding future Coven harness adapters without weakening daemon authority or provider credential boundaries.
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Coven v0 ships built-in adapters for Codex and Claude Code. Future adapters should meet the same bar before they are documented as supported.
Adapter contract
An adapter needs:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
Stable Harness id | The id clients pass to coven run and the socket API. |
| Label | Human-readable display name. |
| Executable | Binary name resolved on PATH; not an arbitrary client-supplied path. |
| Interactive prompt args | Fixed argv prefix for terminal sessions. |
| Non-interactive prompt args | Fixed argv prefix for scripts and output capture. |
| Install hint | Actionable setup text for coven doctor. |
The prompt should be the final argument after any fixed prefix args unless the adapter design explicitly proves a different shape is safer.
Review checklist
Before adding a new adapter, verify:
- The CLI can run inside a normal PTY.
- It has a stable command-line prompt shape.
- It can run from an explicit working directory.
- Provider credentials stay with the harness.
- It has a clear install/auth story.
- It does not require clients to pass secrets through Coven.
- It can fail closed when the executable is missing.
Planned does not mean supported
Hermes, Aider, Gemini CLI, Cline, and other runtimes may become useful future harnesses. Until they land in the adapter table and coven doctor, docs should describe them as roadmap or design work, not current support.
For current commands, use Codex, Claude Code, and CLI run reference.
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