| name | harness-postmortem |
| description | Harness-fix meta-skill (slash: /meta) — analyze an agent behavior failure (autonomy violation, refusal, premature stopping) and run /harness to fix the agent, NOT the underlying task. Input: Slack thread URL, pasted conversation, or freeform description. |
| type | quality |
| execution_mode | deferred |
| scope | user |
harness-postmortem (slash: /meta) — Fix the agent, not the task
Canonical location: ~/.hermes/skills/harness-postmortem/SKILL.md (or its ~/.hermes_prod equivalent). This file is the Claude-side mirror pointer. Collision rule: if a workspace contains .claude/commands/meta.md, repo-local content takes precedence over this mirror.
The slash command is /meta because that's the user's invocation pattern. Both meta and harness-postmortem resolve to the same skill.
Inputs
$ARGUMENTS — Slack thread URL, pasted conversation, OR freeform description of agent misbehavior.
Scope guardrail
/meta is scope-locked to the agent behavior failure. It never investigates or continues the underlying task the agent was attempting — it only analyzes and fixes the harness (instructions, skills, tests, rules) that let the bad behavior happen.
Behavior
- Detect input shape (URL / paste / description).
- Fetch the thread via
mcp__slack__conversations_replies if URL.
- Apply the scope guardrail (NEVER investigate the underlying task).
- Run the Phase 0/1 protocol: MAST + ETCLOVG classification → Observe → Isolate → Simulate → Evaluate.
- If user passed
--fix or used a fullrun trigger (/a, /fullrun, /finish, "don't stop", "iterate until good"), implement + commit + push.
- Otherwise: output the analysis and wait for approval.
Implementation reference
Full protocol at ~/.hermes/skills/harness-postmortem/SKILL.md (canonical — read this for the complete MAST/ETCLOVG taxonomy, phase steps, and anti-patterns). Highlights:
- Scope guardrail — top of SKILL.md.
- Phase 0 — MAST taxonomy (Cemri et al., arXiv:2503.13657) + ETCLOVG layer model (arXiv:2606.06324) classification.
- Phase 1 — Observe → Isolate → Simulate → Evaluate 4-step spine, with 5-Whys inside Simulate as a prompt heuristic.
- Phase 2/3 apply + land — via
hermes-deploy-pipeline self-merge flow on jleechanclaw.
- Anti-patterns — end of SKILL.md.
- Prior art — Refinex-Space harness-fix, HarnessFix paper, MAST, Reflexion, Observe→Isolate→Simulate→Evaluate pattern.
Examples
/meta — auto-detect from last conversation; if none, prompt for input./meta hermes stopped halfway again — freeform./meta https://jleechanai.slack.com/archives/C0AH3RY3DK6/p1782941155305869 — Slack thread./meta --fix <description> — analyze AND apply harness fix without confirmation.
Output
Per finish-the-job Phase 4 — end-state declaration + proof artifact + judgment calls + zero follow-up question.
Cross-references
/harness — ~/.claude/commands/harness.md (the protocol this skill wraps).harness-postmortem skill (canonical) — ~/.hermes/skills/harness-postmortem/SKILL.md.harness-engineering — ~/.hermes/skills/harness-engineering/SKILL.md (SOUL.md / TOOLS.md rules).finish-the-job — ~/.hermes/skills/finish-the-job/SKILL.md (end-state contract).hermes-deploy-pipeline — ~/.hermes/skills/hermes-deploy-pipeline/SKILL.md (landing recipe).
