ADR 0035: Default planning/coding backend is Kilocode

Status

Accepted

Context

Loreley supports multiple CLI agent backends for planning and coding. We want a single default that works well in headless automation without interactive prompts and can provide optional structured stdout for downstream tools.

Decision

Default WORKER_PLANNING_BACKEND and WORKER_CODING_BACKEND to the worker-aware Kilocode factories (loreley.core.worker.agent.backends.kilocode_cli:kilocode_planning_backend and loreley.core.worker.agent.backends.kilocode_cli:kilocode_coding_backend). When a backend emits JSON-wrapped stdout, Loreley extracts the best-effort Markdown payload before deriving summaries and commit messages.

Consequences

• The Kilocode CLI (kilo) is required by default; other backends remain opt-in via WORKER_*_BACKEND.
• Debug artifacts preserve raw stdout/stderr while the persisted plan/report uses the extracted Markdown payload.