dog

A minimal terminal coding agent.

Build

make        # produces ./dog
make clean  # remove objects and binary

Requires:

• g++ (C++17)
• libcurl

Usage

dog                      # interactive session
dog "fix the bug"        # one-shot (headless), exits after one turn
dog --plan "design X"    # start in plan mode
dog -c myconfig.json     # use an alternate config file

Interactive commands

Attach images by name in a prompt: look at @screenshot.png and describe it. Interrupt a running turn with Ctrl-C.

Configuration

Config is read from dog.json (override the path with -c). Environment variables are read first; the config file then overrides them.

Example dog.json

{
  "model": {
    "base_url": "http://localhost:8000/v1",
    "api_key": "...",
    "model": "my-model",
    "max_turns": 500,
    "context_window": 192000,
    "compact_threshold": 0.75,
    "compact_keep": 6
  },
  "skills_dir": "skills",
  "system_file": "SYSTEM.md",
  "mcp": []
}

Keys

Environment variables

• OPENAI_BASE_URL — endpoint (maps to model.base_url)
• OPENAI_API_KEY — API key (maps to model.api_key)
• OPENAI_MODEL — model name (maps to model.model)
• HARNESS_SKILLS_DIR — skills directory (skills_dir)
• HARNESS_SYSTEM_FILE — system prompt file (system_file)
• HARNESS_CONTEXT_WINDOW — token window (model.context_window)
• HARNESS_MAX_TURNS — max turns per request (model.max_turns)
• HARNESS_COMPACT_THRESHOLD — compact threshold (model.compact_threshold)
• HARNESS_COMPACT_KEEP — messages kept when compacting (model.compact_keep)