Time to ship · about 4 minutes
Pick your worker.
Aura routes work to a worker agent. Claude Code and Codex CLI both work. Choosing the right one for the task changes what she can do.
Aura is the steering layer — she is not the worker. The worker is the agent that reads files, runs tests, and writes code. She supports two workers today: Claude Code (editor-style, turn-by-turn dispatch) and Codex CLI (autonomous CLI agent, longer-running). You can switch from Settings; restart Aura or open a fresh call before dispatching with the new worker.
Claude Code — editor-style, turn-by-turn.
Choose Claude Code when you want the default local Claude Code worker path. Aura sends approved tasks to Claude Code through the local queue and keeps the worker result connected to the current project. It requires Claude Code to be logged in: claude auth login.
Codex CLI — autonomous, longer-running.
Choose Codex when you need an agent that can run unsupervised for several minutes — package management, CI-style build loops, multi-file refactors, or anything where you want to describe the outcome and come back when it is done. Codex runs in a persistent project thread; Aura posts status notes and calls you back at completion. Requires codex login and the Aura helper plugin.
$codex login $aura codex-setup --no-open-app
Switch from settings.
Open Settings and set the worker under the Agent section. The setting is persisted immediately, but the active voice process keeps the worker it started with. End the current call and start a fresh one before dispatching to the newly selected worker. Any in-flight task is not affected.
BYO key — bring your own API key.
If your team uses a shared API key or an enterprise endpoint, save it from Settings → BYOK, export it only for the current shell, or store it directly in macOS Keychain under the provider key name. Aura reads OPENAI_API_KEY and XAI_API_KEY from macOS Keychain or the environment; provider keys are never written to config files or logs.
$security add-generic-password -s OPENAI_API_KEY -a "$USER" -w "<key>" -U $security add-generic-password -s XAI_API_KEY -a "$USER" -w "<key>" -U
Key scope
Aura's Keychain entry is scoped to the Aura application. It does not share or inherit keys from Claude Code or Codex. Each tool manages its own credentials separately.