Picking your harnesses
Brigade installs material on two independent axes: depth (how much shared baseline you want) and harnesses (which tools you actually use).
Supported harnesses
Eighteen writer harnesses are supported, each with its own local handoff inbox in the same format. OpenClaw or Hermes owns the canonical memory; Hermes can also write handoffs.
| Writer | --harnesses / --inbox id | Local inbox |
|---|---|---|
| Codex CLI | codex | .codex/memory-handoffs/ |
| Claude Code | claude | .claude/memory-handoffs/ |
| OpenCode | opencode | .opencode/memory-handoffs/ |
| Antigravity | antigravity | .antigravity/memory-handoffs/ |
| Pi | pi | .pi/memory-handoffs/ |
| Cursor | cursor | .cursor/memory-handoffs/ |
| Aider | aider | .aider/memory-handoffs/ |
| Goose | goose | .goose/memory-handoffs/ |
| Continue | continue | .continue/memory-handoffs/ |
| GitHub Copilot CLI | copilot | .copilot/memory-handoffs/ |
| Qwen Code | qwen | .qwen/memory-handoffs/ |
| Kimi Code | kimi | .kimi/memory-handoffs/ |
| AdaL | adal | .adal/memory-handoffs/ |
| OpenHands | openhands | .openhands/memory-handoffs/ |
| Grok CLI | grok | .grok/memory-handoffs/ |
| Amp | amp | .amp/memory-handoffs/ |
| Crush | crush | .crush/memory-handoffs/ |
| Hermes | hermes | .hermes/memory-handoffs/ |
OpenClaw is usually the canonical memory owner rather than a writer inbox. Add it with --harnesses openclaw,... when the workspace should own durable memory.
Common combos
- Claude Code only:
--harnesses claude, the lightest setup, just one writer. - Claude Code + OpenClaw:
--harnesses claude,openclaw, durable memory owner (OpenClaw) plus side writer (Claude Code). - Claude Code + Codex + OpenClaw:
--harnesses claude,codex,openclaw, both writers feed into OpenClaw as the canonical owner. - Codex + OpenClaw:
--harnesses codex,openclaw, Codex-first user with OpenClaw as the canonical store. - Several surfaces + OpenClaw:
--harnesses codex,claude,cursor,aider,openclaw, mix as many writers as you use, all feeding OpenClaw as the canonical owner. - Hermes workspace:
--harnesses hermeson its own, or--harnesses hermes,codex,claudeto keep Hermes as the owner while other tools write handoffs alongside it.
Hermes support
Hermes is a first-class harness, not an experiment. --harnesses hermes installs the .hermes/memory-handoffs/ writer inbox plus the .brigade/hermes/ adapter fragments. Hermes can act as a writer or as the canonical memory owner, so a Hermes-led workspace works the same way an OpenClaw-led one does.
Verify the wiring after setup:
brigade operator verify-harness --harness hermes --target .
brigade handoff list --target .The verifier checks both the .hermes/memory-handoffs/ inbox and the .brigade/hermes/ adapter fragments.
Choosing the canonical owner
The canonical memory owner is picked automatically by priority (openclaw > hermes > claude > codex > this-repo). Override with --owner, for example --owner hermes to make Hermes the owner even when OpenClaw is also installed.
Re-running init is safe
Re-running brigade init against an existing target is safe. It refuses to overwrite tracked files without --force. The managed .gitignore block is replaced between its markers without touching the rest of your file.
See the Quickstart for setup, verification, and the ingest flow.