Adopt Elide in an existing project

elide adopt starts an AI coding harness with a migration prompt for the project in the current directory. The harness edits files; Elide does not. Other languages in the project are kept.

What works today

These shapes pass elide install, elide build, elide test, startup, and the original build, starting from a fresh checkout:

Project shape	Existing build	Tested on
Java, Spring Boot application	Maven	Spring Petclinic: dependencies, resources, tests, runnable app, JAR
Java, Spring Boot service	Gradle	Spring REST service: dependencies, resources, tests, HTTP readiness
Kotlin/JVM command-line app	Gradle Kotlin DSL	Single module with Kotlin serialization and coroutines

The prompt is tested with Codex. Multi-module, Android, and unusual generated-source or annotation-processing setups are untested.

Before you start

Install and sign in to a harness:

Choice Executable Harness
codex codex OpenAI Codex CLI
claude claude Claude Code
omp omp OMP
Commit the project, so the migration is one reviewable diff.
Build it once with Maven or Gradle, so there is a known-good baseline.

Choice	Executable	Harness
`codex`	`codex`	OpenAI Codex CLI
`claude`	`claude`	Claude Code
`omp`	`omp`	OMP

Interactive adoption

elide adopt

Elide asks three questions, then starts the harness.

Choose a build strategy

Strategy	Harness does
Elide build	Writes `elide.pkl`, switches to `elide build`, and validates with Elide. Maven or Gradle files stay until that passes.
Existing build	Keeps Maven or Gradle; adopts Elide runtime and toolchain commands only.

For a Spring Boot app built with Elide, choose Elide build; the prompt checks the entry point, Spring dependencies and plugins, resources, tests and packaging.

Choose a harness

Choose codex, claude or omp. Elide prints the path of the harness log before starting, then shows a status display. --log also streams the harness output; manual approval always streams it.

Success means the harness exited 0, not that the migration is correct.

Append Markdown guidance to the prompt; repeat the flag to add fragments in order:

elide adopt --prompt-append ./adoption-guidance.md

Choose an approval mode

Mode	Behavior	Use for
`auto-approve`	The harness’s automatic approval; its sandbox rules apply.	A committed worktree you will review.
`manual-approve`	You approve each action.	Unfamiliar or sensitive repositories.
`yolo`	Bypasses the harness’s approvals and sandbox where it can.	Disposable environments without secrets.

Cancelling a question exits without starting the harness. Ctrl+C stops the harness, keeps the log, and exits 130.

Run without questions

elide adopt \
  --build elide \
  --harness codex \
  --approval auto-approve \
  --non-interactive

--non-interactive requires --build, --harness and --approval (auto-approve or yolo). Without it, preset answers skip their questions:

elide adopt --build elide --harness claude

Validate the migration

Review the diff: dependency versions, source and resource directories, entry point, tests and packaging. Then run:

elide install
elide build
elide test

Run the original Maven or Gradle build too, while it exists. If the result is wrong, read the log, revert, and retry with a --prompt-append file.