Core concepts — Evident Docs

These are the core terms used across Evident. They all describe one simple idea: your runner runs on your machine, and Evident makes it reachable — from Slack, GitHub, email and the web.

Here's how they fit together. You create a runner and run it on your own machine using the Evident CLI. You and your team then reach it through a connector — the web chat, Slack, GitHub or email — where each chat is a conversation. For unattended setups, a runner key lets the CLI connect as that runner without a personal login.

Runner vs agent

A runner is the machine — the one with your repository, tools, and credentials on it. It's what you create in Evident, connect with the CLI, and route work to. An OpenCode agent is a persona that runs inside your runner to do the work, chosen per message or per connector alongside a model — it's what you actually chat with. When these docs say "agent" on its own, they mean the OpenCode one.

View diagram source

graph LR
  Team["team members"]
  subgraph Connectors["connectors"]
    Web["web chat"]
    Slack["Slack"]
    GitHub["GitHub"]
    Email["email"]
  end
  Team --> Web
  Team --> Slack
  Team --> GitHub
  Team --> Email
  Web --> Conversation["conversation"]
  Slack --> Conversation
  GitHub --> Conversation
  Email --> Conversation
  subgraph Runner["runner"]
    Agent["OpenCode agent"]
  end
  Conversation --> Runner

Your runner runs on your machine or in your own AWS account; Evident routes conversations to it.

Your runner

What you create and where it runs.

Term	What it means
Runner	The durable thing you create in Evident: a machine with your code and tools on it, backed by a local OpenCode. It is scoped to a team and reachable on its own Evident address.
OpenCode agent	A persona that runs inside your runner to handle a message. You can pick one per connector or per message, alongside a model.
Where your runner runs	Usually on your machine, where your code, secrets, and tools already live — started by the Evident CLI. It can also run in your own AWS account (in preview). Either way Evident never runs your code and keeps no copy of your repository.
CLI (evident)	The command-line tool that runs OpenCode locally and connects it to Evident. Its commands are login, logout, whoami, status, and run.

Reaching your runner

How you and your team talk to it.

Term	What it means
Conversation	Evident's stable identifier for a chat. A conversation is bound to wherever it started — a Slack thread, a GitHub pull request, an email thread — and is reachable from the web too.
Connector	A way to reach your runner: the web chat, Slack, GitHub (mentions and pull request checks), or email. Schedules and outbound webhooks work alongside them. Connectors are attached to a runner and managed on its Connectors tab.
Runner proxy	The runner's own Evident address that serves its chat surface. Opening the chat opens this surface, with access limited to the runner's team.

Slack

How messages get routed once Slack is connected.

Term	What it means
Default runner (Slack)	Your team's runner that handles Slack messages unless a per-channel or per-message override applies.
Per-channel override	A Slack channel can be configured to use a specific runner, OpenCode agent, or model instead of the default.
Inline selectors	Optional markers at the start of a Slack message — [runner] +agent-name {model}, in any order. The runner marker chooses a new thread’s runner; an existing thread keeps its original runner and refuses a different runner marker privately. An OpenCode agent or model continues in the thread until replaced. The markers are stripped from your prompt before the runner sees it.
View in Evident link	The link Slack posts so you can open a conversation in the chat. Questions and permissions are resolved there, keeping Slack tidy. It keeps working if the runner restarts or the conversation moves to another runner.

Access and identity

Who can use what.

Term	What it means
Team / organization	The unit everything is scoped to. A team is created automatically the first time you use Evident. Members have roles: owner, admin, or member.
Runner key	A credential scoped to a single runner, created from the API Keys section of that runner's settings page. It lets the CLI connect as that runner without a personal login — ideal for unattended setups.

Next, follow the Quickstart to go from zero to a working runner in a few minutes, or read the Introduction for the bigger picture.