babysitter

Babysitter

Enforce obedience on agentic workforces. Manage extremely complex workflows through deterministic, hallucination-free self-orchestration.

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Getting Started | Documentation | Community

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Table of Contents

• What is Babysitter?
• Prerequisites
• Installation
• First Steps
• Quick Start
• Agent Runtime CLI
• How It Works
• Why Babysitter?
• Blueprints
• Compression
• Documentation
• Contributing
• Community and Support
• License

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What is Babysitter?

Babysitter enforces obedience to agentic workforces, enabling them to manage extremely complex tasks and workflows through deterministic, hallucination-free self-orchestration. Define your workflow in code - Babysitter enforces every step, ensures quality gates pass before progression, requires human approval at breakpoints, and records every decision in an immutable journal. Your agents do exactly what the process permits, nothing more.

As of v6, Babysitter is harness-agnostic via its Adapters runtime: the same processes run across the 12 supported AI coding harnesses, so you are not locked to a single tool. See Adapters and the harness install matrix.

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Prerequisites

• Node.js: Version 20.0.0+ (22.x LTS recommended). The host-side adapters CLI pins a higher floor of 22.13.0+ (it loads the gateway's built-in node:sqlite, unflagged only from Node 22.13.0).
• A supported AI coding harness: any of the 12 harnesses covered in the install matrix (e.g. Claude Code — docs).
• Git: For cloning (optional)

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Installation

Babysitter v6 has two install tracks that should not be conflated: the host-side adapters CLI for running any harness directly from your shell, and the in-session per-harness plugin for driving full orchestration runs from inside your harness. Most people want both. The package split is:

• @a5c-ai/babysitter is the recommended end-user install for the main babysitter CLI.
• @a5c-ai/adapters-cli provides the host-side adapters CLI (Node >=22.13.0) for running and managing any supported harness from your shell. See the Adapters CLI reference.
• @a5c-ai/babysitter-sdk is the public SDK/library package and the underlying implementation behind the core CLI.
• @a5c-ai/genty-platform is the optional runtime CLI for genty call, resume, start-server, tui, and other orchestration/runtime commands.
• Harness plugins such as @a5c-ai/babysitter-codex or @a5c-ai/babysitter-cursor integrate Babysitter into a specific host tool. They do not replace the core CLI packages.

For most users, install the main CLI first:

npm install -g @a5c-ai/babysitter

Prefer to drive a harness directly from your shell instead of from inside a session? Install the host-side adapters CLI and run any supported harness with one command — see the Adapters CLI reference:

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

Babysitter supports the 12 AI coding harnesses listed in the install matrix. Install the plugin for your harness of choice; the two fully-worked harnesses have dedicated pages — Claude Code and Codex. In this repository, plugins/babysitter-unified is the only maintained plugin source; harness-specific bundles are generated during build/release and are not committed:

Claude Code

Native marketplace install:

claude plugin marketplace add a5c-ai/babysitter-claude
claude plugin install --scope user babysitter@a5c.ai

Restart Claude Code, then type /skills to verify "babysit" appears.

Claude Cowork can install the same plugin. For a personal install from this repo's Claude marketplace:

1. Open Claude Desktop and switch to the Cowork tab.
2. Click Customize in the left sidebar.
3. Click Browse plugins.
4. Select Personal.
5. Click +, then choose Add marketplace from GitHub.
6. Enter https://github.com/a5c-ai/babysitter.
7. Install the Babysitter plugin from that marketplace.

For Team and Enterprise org-managed installs, owners can add plugins through Organization settings > Plugins. GitHub-synced organization marketplaces require a private or internal GitHub repository, so use a private/internal fork of this repo for that flow, or upload plugin ZIPs manually.

Plugin README

Codex CLI (Beta)

Official marketplace install:

codex plugin marketplace add a5c-ai/babysitter-codex
codex plugin add babysitter --marketplace babysitter

--marketplace babysitter is the marketplace name declared in the repo's .agents/plugins/marketplace.json (not the repo name).

Plugin README

Cursor IDE and CLI (Experimental)

Via the Cursor marketplace or the SDK helper:

babysitter harness:install-plugin cursor

Plugin README

Gemini CLI (Experimental)

babysitter harness:install-plugin gemini-cli

Plugin README

GitHub Copilot (Experimental)

Via the GitHub Copilot CLI marketplace, or:

babysitter harness:install-plugin github-copilot

Plugin README

Pi (Experimental)

babysitter harness:install-plugin pi

Plugin README

Hermes (Experimental)

babysitter harness:install-plugin hermes

Plugin README

Oh-My-Pi (Experimental)

babysitter harness:install-plugin oh-my-pi

Plugin README

OpenCode (Experimental)

babysitter harness:install-plugin opencode

Plugin README

OpenClaw (Experimental)

babysitter harness:install-plugin openclaw

Plugin README

Internal Harness (No AI Coding Agent Required)

Babysitter ships with a built-in internal harness that runs processes programmatically without any external AI coding agent. This is useful for CI/CD pipelines, scripts, automated testing, and headless orchestration:

npm install -g @a5c-ai/genty-platform

# Run a process definition using the internal harness
genty call --harness internal --process .a5c/processes/my-process.js#process --workspace .

# Or run a free-form prompt
genty call --harness internal --prompt "run lint and tests" --workspace .

The internal harness uses the SDK's built-in Pi execution engine directly. It supports all capabilities (Programmatic, SessionBinding, StopHook, HeadlessPrompt) and requires no external AI harness CLI.

During process execution, the internal harness can delegate tasks to any discovered installed harness via the invoker. A process running under --harness internal can spawn subagent tasks that execute through Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, or any other harness found on the system -- the SDK discovers available harness CLIs at runtime and routes task execution accordingly. This means you can orchestrate a multi-agent workflow from a single headless entry point, with different tasks delegated to whichever harness is best suited for them.

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Runtime Package Builds

For the core runtime chain (@a5c-ai/babysitter-sdk, @a5c-ai/adapters, @a5c-ai/genty-core, @a5c-ai/genty-platform), use the shared workspace entrypoint from a fresh checkout:

npm ci
npm run build:runtime

build:runtime is the supported root entrypoint for release and CI validation. It builds the runtime graph in workspace order: SDK -> adapters SDK surface -> genty-core -> genty-platform.

Package-local validation is also supported:

npm run build --workspace=@a5c-ai/genty-core
npm run build --workspace=@a5c-ai/genty-platform

Those package-local builds now use tsc --build project references where the runtime packages are owned in this workspace, and they explicitly bootstrap the @a5c-ai/adapters SDK chain through the root runtime scripts. Fresh-checkout validation no longer assumes prebuilt upstream dist/ artifacts.

@a5c-ai/atlas provides the unified knowledge graph, ontology, and catalog data consumed by SDK, adapters, hooks, plugin tooling, and the catalog UI. The agent catalog surface is @a5c-ai/atlas/catalog. See packages/atlas/README.md.

CLI Walkthrough Verification

The published CLI walkthrough at docs/cli-examples.md is verified against the real repo surfaces, not a separate docs-only harness. From a fresh checkout, use:

npm ci
npm run build --workspace=@a5c-ai/babysitter-sdk
npm run docs:prepare
npm run docs:examples:smoke
npm run docs:qa

npm run docs:examples:verify runs that docs-focused flow end-to-end. The generated traceability map for the walkthrough lives at docs/generated/cli-examples-verification.md.

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First Steps

After installation, set up your environment:

1. Configure Your Profile (One-Time)

/babysitter:user-install

This creates your personal profile with:

• Breakpoint preferences (how much oversight you want)
• Tool preferences and communication style
• Expertise areas for better process matching

2. Set Up Your Project

/babysitter:project-install

This analyzes your codebase and configures:

• Project-specific workflows
• Test frameworks and CI/CD integration
• Tech stack preferences

3. Verify Setup

/babysitter:doctor

Run diagnostics to confirm everything is working.

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Quick Start

claude "/babysitter:call implement user authentication with TDD"

Or in natural language:

Use the babysitter skill to implement user authentication with TDD

Claude will create an orchestration run, execute tasks step-by-step, handle quality checks and approvals, and continue until completion.

Choose Your Mode

Mode	Command	When to Use