Provider System¶

Sidekick has two separate provider concepts that operate independently.

flowchart LR
    subgraph Inference["Inference Providers"]
        direction TB
        CM["claude-max"] --> AS["AuthService"]
        CA["claude-api"] --> AS
        OCI["opencode"] --> AS
        CXI["codex"] --> AS
        AS --> Complete["complete()"]
    end

    subgraph Session["Session Providers"]
        direction TB
        CCS["claude-code"] --> SM["SessionMonitor"]
        OCS["opencode"] --> SM
        CXS["codex"] --> SM
        SM --> UI["UI Components"]
    end

    PD["ProviderDetector<br/><small>Auto-detect via filesystem mtime</small>"]
    PD -.-> Inference
    PD -.-> Session

Inference Providers¶

Defined as InferenceProviderId in src/types/inferenceProvider.ts:

All inference clients implement the ClaudeClient interface:

interface ClaudeClient {
  complete(prompt: string, options?: CompletionOptions): Promise<string>;
  isAvailable(): Promise<boolean>;
  dispose(): void;
}

AuthService is the central entry point — lazily initializes the correct client and routes all complete() calls.

Session Providers¶

Defined as SessionProvider in src/types/sessionProvider.ts:

Each session provider normalizes raw data into the common ClaudeSessionEvent format.

Auto-Detection¶

Both provider types support auto-detection via ProviderDetector, which checks:

1. Which CLI tools are installed on the system
2. Which have the most recent filesystem activity (mtime)
3. Selects the most recently used provider

Independence¶

Inference and session providers are independent — you can use Claude Max for inference while monitoring OpenCode sessions, or any other combination.

Shared Provider Library¶

The sidekick-shared package ports the session provider implementations for use outside VS Code. It uses the same auto-detection algorithm — checking filesystem presence and most-recent modification time — minus the VS Code setting fallback. Any npm project can consume these providers directly via npm install sidekick-shared.

The CLI's --provider flag serves as an explicit override when auto-detection isn't appropriate. Providers read session data in the same formats (JSONL, SQLite, JSON) as the extension, so the CLI produces identical results from the same data files.