Current quantum annealing implementations6 focus on the adiabatic preparation of classical states with thermally assisted adiabatic quantum protocols. Here, we propose a setup for coherent annealing with the aim to open an experimental route to adiabatic and non-adiabatic protocols. For example, non-adiabatic and fully coherent sweeps allow for counter-diabatic protocols7 with the potential to improve scaling laws in quantum annealing considerably, as well as the recently introduced hybrid annealing method8. While thermally assisted annealing is suitable to prepare classical ground states or mixtures, a fully coherent annealer can also be used to prepare quantum superpositions from Hamiltonians with degenerate ground states9. A coherent protocol with non-stoquastic10 driver terms opens a promising route to highly efficient protocols for optimization problems11.