Let's say I have a covered call in a retirement account ...

and the stock is falling. I want to keep the call but ditch the underlying. What type of order will get me that or a similar result? Conditional? (When the stock hits a level buy an ATM put?) If so, any brokers allow this for free and make it easy?

 

You can't naked short a call in an equity retirement account.

 

so adding a put atm to the falling stock price that I would rather sell is my solution, right?

 

As above. You either close the whole lot or put on a protective put

 

so limit buy a protective put when the stock falls to a certain level?

 

I don't know how they do it but Tastytrade claims they have a method to sell naked calls in IRAs - your current broker may not so you are either going to transfer the entire position or replicate it.

https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/strategies-for-ira/episodes/short-calls-in-an-ira-07-10-2019

 

What stock is it? How far below or above break even are you?
Kind of an interesting point since the market could bounce here. Depending on the stock you could wait a little bit before buying the put.
You could also consider cheaper further otm puts but need to weigh the pros and cons and calculations.
Say the market boxes you, your stock goes up, the sold call expires worthless, you can still keep the stock and buy a put later or sell another call.