Cline CLI Adapter

The cline adapter uses Cline's public ACP entry point for persistent structured sessions. The managed runtime is pinned to Cline CLI 3.0.54, the version whose ACP protocol, native session loading, cancellation, permissions, and history artifacts are covered by the adapter contract tests.

adapters:
  cline:
    cli:
      source: managed
      version: 3.0.54
    authMethod: cline
    # Optional; omit to let task stop/kill own the human OAuth lifetime.
    authTimeoutMs: 600000
    telemetry: off

authMethod is an explicit choice from the pinned CLI's advertised agent-owned ACP methods: cline, cline-pass, or openai-codex. Omit it to choose from the advertised methods at session startup. As an alternative for a verified provider, select exactly which current-process credential variables may be passed:

adapters:
  cline:
    provider: openai
    credentialEnv: [OPENAI_API_KEY]

For API-key providers, the selected source variable is mapped to Cline's verified CLINE_API_KEY process contract; that form is already accepted by the upstream ACP readiness gate and cannot be combined with authMethod. Bedrock and Vertex are different: selected AWS/Google native variables are delivered process-only, but do not satisfy ACP readiness by themselves. Each create or cross-process load must still complete an explicitly configured, cached, or interactively selected advertised authMethod. If the pinned CLI advertises no verified method, the adapter fails before newSession / loadSession instead of treating provider variables as authentication.

Authentication-method choice and authenticate do not use the 20-second control-RPC deadline: a first-time browser OAuth flow may wait for a human callback. The adapter returns a stoppable session handle and reports an in-progress authentication operation before waiting. By default, task stop/kill or child exit owns cancellation. Set authTimeoutMs (minimum 60 seconds) only when an explicit bounded authentication policy is required. Cancellation, exit, and timeout produce one terminal settlement and do not persist tokens.

Runtime and resume boundary

• Managed sessions require ACP protocol version 1, agentInfo.name: cline, native loadSession, and CLI version 3.0.54. One Works caches Cline's native session id and loads it in a later Cline process.
• A system or path binary that does not satisfy that gate is fresh-only. It uses Cline's structured --json mode and never combines --json with --id or parses terminal UI output.
• A managed binary that fails the gate stops with an error instead of silently weakening resume behavior.
• If Cline reports a normal ACP end_turn without text, tool, or result output, One Works fails the turn with a generic message. Cline 3.0.54 does not expose the underlying provider error in that case, so One Works does not guess an HTTP or provider cause.
• Native permissions select request-scoped allow_once / reject_once only. Even stored One Works session/project decisions never select Cline's persistent allow_always; a request is visibly cancelled when allow_once is absent.
• Fresh-only dontAsk and bypassPermissions use Cline's verified --yolo mode, while plan keeps --plan. default and acceptEdits require an interactive responder and therefore fail before a fresh JSON child is spawned.
• ACP usage_update.used is current context occupancy, not cumulative input tokens. The shared usage contract cannot represent it accurately, so the adapter omits the value with a nonfatal diagnostic instead of inventing tokens/cost.

Isolation and native assets

Each session gets an isolated home and Cline configuration directory. Native session data is project-private and stable across One Works processes so verified ACP resume can load the native id. provider is passed only through Cline 3.0.54's official --provider flag. Model selection is currently limited to Cline's native Default; One Works service models are not forwarded as Cline model ids. Before newSession or loadSession, the adapter validates the pinned CLI's advertised authentication methods and calls authenticate only after an explicit configured, cached prior explicit, or interactive choice. It never silently selects an external login.

inheritNativeAuth remains unsupported: One Works does not inspect or copy another Cline store. Ambient provider, Git, and internal credential variables are removed from the isolated child. credentialEnv is an explicit current-process exception limited to the selected provider's verified Cline 3.0.54 variables (including selected Bedrock/Vertex file locators); values are passed only to the child process and are never written to config, cache, hooks, or logs. AWS/Google native variables never suppress the ACP authentication step.

Selected skills are staged into Cline's native skills directory. The One Works system prompt is added as a native rule; replacing Cline's built-in system prompt is not supported. Cline 3.0.54 accepted ACP MCP arguments and a --hooks-dir, but isolated probes did not show an observable MCP connection or native hook execution. Selected MCP servers therefore report skipped; unified hook plugins use the One Works event-bridge fallback and do not claim native Cline hook support.

Native history

The External Sessions panel can preview and import Cline history from ~/.cline/data. The importer opens only db/sessions.db and the messages artifacts explicitly referenced by its session rows. SQLite is opened read-only and query-only; mutable WAL/SHM sidecars, symlinks, traversal, oversized files, locks, corrupt databases, and unsupported schemas fail closed. Provider settings, general configuration, and credential files are never read.

Messages artifacts must also match the verified Cline 3.0.54 version: 1 and origin discriminators. Unknown, missing, or mixed versions are diagnosed during preview and skipped without partial import. Preview and import use the same server-owned file-size limit.

Imported history keeps the native session id and project ownership. Parent links are source-root/project scoped and are emitted only when the parent is included or already exists, so a subagent-only import cannot create dangling navigation. Incremental parent-first/child-only imports resolve the durable existing parent, while child-first imports retain only non-secret native correlation metadata so a later parent import can repair the link. Ambiguous duplicate native ids across roots fail closed. Tool results require one unique earlier retained tool_use_id in the same artifact; missing, future, duplicate, or mismatched relationships reject the session. Image-only replay placeholders are shown as unavailable content rather than fabricated tool output. Native source artifacts remain untouched.

Run oneworks adapter prepare cline to prepare the managed CLI. See Adapter CLI Installation and Versions for source and binary overrides.