No. A harness is what turns an LLM into an agent: it gives the model tools, a way to call them, runs them, and hands the results back. Claude Code is kind of a harness. It is an interface (the TUI, the Code tab in the desktop app) plus a harness underneath (the Anthropic Agent SDK). Codex is the same split: the app plus the Codex App Server. Ada uses those harnesses. It is not a harness, and it does not work without one.
Chef = LLM. Kitchen = harness. Ada = the restaurant that lets you bring whatever kitchen you want. Our MCP is a cookbook we hand the kitchen, but the chef won't open it unless you tell them to :)
Bring your own: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build, OpenCode, Google Antigravity, Kiro, Pi, Muse Code, or fx. Provider setup
We were inspired by the Codex desktop app, Conductor, Claude Desktop, and Cursor Glass, but none met our bar. What you get:
- Bring your own sub. Claude, Codex, and whatever else you already have installed.
- Best in class remote. Run
ada upon any box and drive it from anywhere. - Best in class mobile app.
- Truly 100% open source. If we go the wrong direction, fork it.
Every harness feels nearly identical in here, so you can stop worrying about harnesses and focus on building :) Install
Yes.
Nothing. There's no way to pay us to use Ada. You bring your own sub. It is free and open source (MIT). You still pay your provider like you already do. Install
It shouldn't anymore. Ada drives Claude through Anthropic's Agent SDK, and Anthropic's 5h meter used to charge Agent SDK usage about 1.7x more than using Claude Code directly. Weekly limits were never affected. Current versions drain your 5h limit at the same rate as Claude Code. Still seeing it? Update Ada on the machine that runs your agents.
Your agents run wherever Ada runs: your desktop, a server, a VPS. You connect to it from anywhere. Run ada up on that machine, then pair over your LAN or Tailscale. Remote access
Ada's mobile app is not in the App Store or Google Play yet. With a test build, connect it to your computer with a pairing link over your LAN or Tailscale. The phone is a remote. Your computer does the work and needs to stay on. Mobile setup · Remote access
Ada runs each provider through its own official CLI, SDK, or ACP binding, the same way you would use it directly. Your provider's terms still apply, so check them if you are unsure.
Ada is not the right place to manage a pile of accounts. An auto-switcher would risk TOS bans for its users.
A separate work account is fine. Setup for two: Codex · Claude. For a bigger pool, manage them outside Ada with a self-hosted proxy like CLIProxyAPI. Pooling accounts can break your provider's terms, so you take that risk yourself. After you set up a hub, Ada can show its pooled limits under Usage. Connect a hub
Yes. Add another provider instance in Settings and give it its own keys and endpoint. Claude has a full OpenRouter recipe. Your subscription setup stays untouched. OpenRouter · Provider instances
No. Ada is a serious developer tool. Locally runnable models are not capable of meaningful engineering work.
No. Your code and prompts go from your machine to your provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.), not to us. Your devices connect straight to your machine over your LAN or Tailscale. Ada doesn't collect usage data. Usage data and diagnostics
Open Settings → Worktrees → Cleanup and turn on automatic worktree cleanup. You can also run it now from there. Worktrees add up fast. Storage cleanup
Yes. On iPhone and Android, dictation uses on-device speech by default; you can opt in to a paired environment instead. Web and desktop require you to choose an environment first. The transcript goes into your draft for review. See Voice input.
Yes, all three. Desktop app, CLI, the works. One catch: there is no ada binary for Intel Macs, so use the desktop app there. Windows folks can also run agents inside WSL. Install
Almost always, the CLI is not installed or not on the PATH of the machine that runs the server. (Not your phone. The computer.) Log in on that machine first, like codex login or claude auth login. Still missing? Point Binary path at it in provider settings. Version managers love to cause this one. Provider setup