Target Support

aspens separates two concepts:

• Target — where generated docs are written and how the AI tool discovers them
• Backend — which CLI generates the content

Targets

Claude

Claude support is hook-aware and file-aware.

Published artifacts:

Artifact	Path
Instructions	CLAUDE.md
Skills	.claude/skills/<name>/skill.md
Hooks	.claude/hooks/...
Settings	.claude/settings.json

Claude reads CLAUDE.md on startup and auto-activates skills through hooks and activation rules.

Codex

Codex support is document-driven rather than hook-driven.

Published artifacts:

Artifact	Path
Instructions	AGENTS.md
Skills	.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
Directory scope	<dir>/AGENTS.md

Codex reads the root AGENTS.md and can use directory-scoped AGENTS.md files for local context.

Both targets

Use --target all to generate both sets from one run:

npx aspens doc init --target all

Adding Codex to an existing Claude repo

You don’t need to start from scratch. aspens reuses existing repo understanding:

# Add just Codex output
npx aspens doc init --target codex

# Or regenerate both together
npx aspens doc init --target all

aspens uses existing CLAUDE.md and .claude/skills as context when generating Codex output.

Target vs Backend

The target and backend are independent. You can mix and match:

# Claude format, generated by Claude CLI
npx aspens doc init --target claude --backend claude

# Codex format, generated by Codex CLI
npx aspens doc init --target codex --backend codex

# Both formats, generated by Claude CLI
npx aspens doc init --target all --backend claude

Configuration

Target and backend settings persist in .aspens.json:

{
  "targets": ["claude", "codex"],
  "backend": "claude"
}

Once configured, commands like doc sync and doc impact use the saved settings automatically.

Sync behavior

The git post-commit hook works for all configured targets:

npx aspens doc sync --install-hook

One hook, all targets updated. Claude-specific activation hooks remain Claude-only.