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Adapters: Run Babysitter on Any Harness

**Version:** 6.0.0 (v6) · **Last Updated:** 2026-06-22 · **Category:** Feature Guide

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In Plain English

**Adapters let your Babysitter processes run on any supported AI coding harness - not just Claude Code.**

Before v6, Babysitter orchestration was wired specifically to Claude Code's session and hook model. With **Adapters**, the orchestration runtime is harness-agnostic: the same process, the same journal, the same quality gates and breakpoints run on Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, and a growing list of others. You pick the harness; Babysitter adapts to it.

There are two ways you will touch Adapters:

• **The Adapters runtime** - the harness-agnostic core that every Babysitter run now sits on. You don't install this separately; it ships with the SDK.
• **The Adapters CLI** (adapters) - a host-side binary that lets you run and manage harnesses directly from your shell.

**Headline change for v6:** Babysitter is no longer "an orchestration framework for Claude Code." It is an orchestration framework for *any supported harness*, and Adapters is the subsystem that makes that true.

**Adapters is a FAMILY, not one thing.** What this page calls "Adapters" is really 20 distinct package types under packages/adapters/ — triggers (CI), extensions (plugin compile), hooks (mandatory-stop lifecycle), proxy (140+ providers), tasks (durable breakpoints), codecs (per-harness drivers), and more. When you hear "adapters," ask *which* adapter. The full enumeration is in the Adapter Types reference.

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On this page

• Why Adapters Exist
• The Adapters Runtime (Technical Depth)
• How Adapters Replace the Legacy Model
• Getting Started with Adapters
• Related Documentation

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Why Adapters Exist

The original Babysitter design assumed one harness (Claude Code) and one continuation mechanism (Claude's Stop hook). Every new harness meant hand-rolling the orchestration loop against that harness's specific lifecycle - bespoke code, duplicated logic, and drift between integrations.

Adapters invert that. A harness is integrated by describing it - its capabilities, its hook model, its command surface - as data in a catalog, and the runtime adapts. Adding or updating a harness becomes an **adapter/data change**, not a fork of the orchestration engine.

This is the core v6 story: **harness-agnosticism through adapters**.

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The Adapters Runtime (Technical Depth)

The Adapters runtime is composed of several cooperating packages under packages/adapters/*:

How Adapters Relate to the Rest of v6

Adapters is the runtime layer the other v6 subsystems plug into:

• **Hooks Adapter** - a canonical session store plus a merge engine that normalizes each harness's distinct hook/continuation model (Claude Stop, Gemini/antigravity AfterAgent, openclaw daemon agent_end, opencode session.idle, Hermes ACP, and the thin /skill:* alias harnesses) into one consistent contract. Adapters do not generalize the Claude Stop-hook model onto harnesses that don't have it.
• **Breakpoints Adapter** - serverless-durable human-in-the-loop approval with pluggable backends (GitHub Issues, server) and "proven" cryptographic signing. See Breakpoints.
• **Transport Adapter and Triggers** - normalize provider transports and inbound webhooks (GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket) so a run can be launched from CI. See GitHub Actions Setup.
• **Atlas** - the catalog that the runtime reads to discover harness capabilities and adapters.

v6 Architecture

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How Adapters Replace the Legacy Model

If you are reading older docs that describe hand-rolling the SDK loop into a harness, treat that as a contributor-level integration note - the user-facing path is now the Adapters runtime plus the per-harness pages.

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Getting Started with Adapters

Install the host-side CLI and run a harness immediately:

npm install -g @a5c-ai/adapters-cli
adapters doctor
adapters run claude "explain this codebase"

To use Adapters from inside a harness as a Babysitter orchestration run, install that harness's plugin (see the per-harness pages) and use its command surface.

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Related Documentation

• Adapter Types reference - All 20 adapter package types enumerated (Adapters is a family)
• Adapters (ecosystem overview) - Introductory tour of the adapters family
• Adapters CLI Reference - Every adapters command and flag
• Architecture & How It Fits Together - Where Adapters sits in the whole ecosystem
• Architecture Overview - Where Adapters sits in the v6 architecture
• Hooks - The Hooks Adapter and per-harness continuation models
• Harnesses: Install Matrix - All supported harnesses
• Claude Code · Codex - Fully-worked harness pages
• Glossary - Adapter, Harness, Atlas, and related terms

Next steps

• **Next:** Adapter Types reference — all 20 types
• **Related:** Adapters CLI Reference, Install Matrix, Hooks, Architecture & How It Fits Together