| name | goal_harness |
| description | Goal-driven harness loop — keep working on a goal until /es, /er, /code_standards, and Codex plugin review all pass. All gates use adversarial subagents. Alias: /h |
/goal_harness Skill
Purpose
Iterative goal-driven development with a 4-gate adversarial quality harness.
The primary agent works on a goal, then validates the work through independent
adversarial subagents that evaluate against specific standards.
Define a goal and iterate until 4 adversarial gates all pass:
/es — Evidence Standards/er — Evidence Review/code_standards — ZFC + ZFC-leveling + root-cause-first (3 lanes)- Independent Agent review — independent diff review
When to Use
- After implementing a feature or fix, before declaring done
- When code quality must be independently verified
- As the final step in
/converge (the convergence loop)
- When
/es and /er must both pass before merging
Cost-Aware Subagent Model Routing (Tiered Spectrum)
When spawning subagents for harness gates, route by task complexity across the model spectrum:
- Gate 1
/es (Evidence Format Check):
- Codex:
model: 'gpt-5.3-codex-spark' (reasoning_effort: medium)
- Claude:
model: 'haiku'
- Gate 3
/code_standards (ZFC, ZFC-leveling, Root-Cause Scans):
- Codex:
model: 'gpt-5.6-luna' (Fast 5.6 Tier)
- Claude:
model: 'haiku' / 'sonnet'
- Gate 2
/er (Evidence Review Synthesis):
- Codex:
model: 'gpt-5.6-terra' (Mid 5.6 Tier)
- Claude:
model: 'sonnet'
- Gate 4
Independent Agent Review (Deep Bug & Security Review):
- Codex:
model: 'gpt-5.6-sol' (Top 5.6 Tier for deep adversarial review)
- Claude:
model: 'sonnet' / 'opus'
This leverages the full Codex 5.6 model family (luna → terra → sol) alongside spark to match model capability directly to gate complexity. Real incident (2026-07-31): unrouted harness loop subagents running all 4 gates on gpt-5.6-sol + high reasoning burned >1B tokens.
Gate Details
Gate 1: /es (Evidence Standards)
Subagent (via the Agent tool) reads both evidence-standards skill layers and evaluates the diff and evidence artifacts.
Returns: PASS / WARN / FAIL with file:line evidence.
Gate 2: /er (Evidence Review)
Subagent (via the Agent tool) runs evidence-review + evidence-standards synthesis against the diff and evidence artifacts (not the raw goal text).
Subagent reviews: Map claims → artifacts, rate STRONG/WEAK/MISSING.
Verdict: PASS / WARN / PARTIAL / FAIL / INCONCLUSIVE.
The evidence-review skill loads from the repo-root required path
.claude/skills/evidence-review.md. If that path is not present, immediately
abort Gate 2 and emit a missing-skill error — do not continue synthesis.
Normalization rule: WARN → PASS (document warnings). PARTIAL → FAIL (gaps remain). INCONCLUSIVE → FAIL (cannot confirm).
Gate 3: /code_standards (3 parallel adversarial lanes)
| Lane | Skill Path | Checks |
|---|
| ZFC | ~/.claude/skills/zero-framework-cognition/SKILL.md | No keyword routing, heuristic scoring, regex intent |
| ZFC-leveling | ~/.claude/skills/zfc-leveling-roadmap/SKILL.md | Level-up fields, modal scoping, stale flag guards |
| Root-cause-first | ~/.claude/skills/root-cause-first/SKILL.md | Root cause documented before adding protections |
Dispatch all 3 in parallel. Any lane FAIL → overall /code_standards FAIL.
WARN is acceptable but must be documented.
Gate 4: Independent Agent Review
Independent subagent reviews the full diff as a code reviewer.
Looks for: bugs, anti-patterns, missing tests, security issues, dead code.
Returns PASS or FAIL with file:line evidence.
Verdict Normalization
| Raw verdict | Normalized | Harness treatment |
|---|
| PASS | PASS | Gate passes |
| WARN | PASS | Gate passes (document warnings) |
| PARTIAL | FAIL | Gate fails — evidence gaps remain |
| INCONCLUSIVE | FAIL | Gate fails — cannot confirm |
Convergence
- 4/4 PASS (after normalization) → CONVERGED. Work is harness-verified.
- Any normalized-FAIL → fix blockers, increment, loop.
- Max iterations (10) → stop with partial report.
- Same score 2x → STALLED. Stop and report.
Subagent Isolation Rules
- Never skip a gate
- Never weaken a subagent's FAIL verdict
- Subagents are adversarial: only standard + diff, no primary agent optimism
- 3 /code_standards lanes run in parallel when possible
- Independent review must not share context with primary agent's own review
Environment Detection
When running in cmux (background/scheduled mode):
- Use
scripts/goalexec-loop.sh for terminal-based loops (canonical)
- Use
scripts/goalexec-loop-cmux.sh for cmux-aware loops (canonical)
scripts/goal-loop.sh and scripts/goal-loop-cmux.sh are legacy aliases- State directory:
~/.goal-loop/
Related Commands
/goal — builtin Claude Code goal command/es — Evidence Standards (reference/display)/er — Evidence Review (adversarial synthesis)/code_standards — Coding standards dispatch (ZFC + ZFC-leveling + root-cause-first)/converge — Iterative goal achievement loop (formerly /goalexec)/converge_define — Define-only variant
