Harness Engineering

Core Principle

When This Skill Activates

Workflow

For New Projects

1. Assess — What's the project? Tech stack? Team size? How will agents be used?
2. Setup — Create foundational harness files → read

   references/01-project-setup.md

3. Context — Design information architecture → read

   references/02-context-engineering.md

4. Constraints — Add guardrails and linters → read

   references/03-constraints.md

5. Evaluate — Set up feedback loops → read

   references/05-eval-feedback.md

6. If project involves multi-agent or long tasks → read

   references/04-multi-agent.md

   ,

   references/06-long-running.md

For Diagnosis (Agent Not Performing Well)

1. Read

   references/07-diagnosis.md

   immediately
2. Identify which harness layer is failing
3. Apply targeted fix from the relevant reference

For Incremental Improvement

Harness Layers (Quick Reference)

01-project-setup.md

02-context-engineering.md

03-constraints.md

04-multi-agent.md

05-eval-feedback.md

06-long-running.md

07-diagnosis.md

Self-Update Protocol

1. Identify which reference file it belongs to (or if it needs a new one)
2. Add the pattern with: what it solves, when to use it, how to implement it
3. Keep it concise — no fluff, just the pattern