| name | harness-engineering-playbook |
| description | Implement OpenAI Harness Engineering practices in any repository — AGENTS.md, PLANS.md, deterministic smoke/test/lint harness commands, strict architecture boundaries, observability from day 1, and entropy-control audits for reliable autonomous agent runs. |
Harness Engineering Playbook
A skills.sh-compatible skill that operationalizes the practices from OpenAI's Harness Engineering guide. Use it to set up or refactor agent-first workflows so that autonomous runs are repeatable, observable, and safe.
Install
npx skills add broomva/harness-engineering-skill --skill harness-engineering-playbook
What It Does
- Bootstraps harness artifacts:
AGENTS.md, PLANS.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, docs/OBSERVABILITY.md, Makefile.harness, and CI workflows.
- Wraps deterministic commands behind
make smoke, make check, make ci so agents can run them reliably.
- Enforces strict module boundaries and data-shape contracts.
- Wires structured observability (correlation IDs, key transitions) from day 1.
- Adds entropy-control audits and nightly harness checks to prevent docs drift and flaky scripts.
Workflow
- Baseline the target repo — detect language, toolchain, and existing CI.
- Bootstrap harness artifacts from templates (interactive wizard or shell script).
- Apply the nine Harness Engineering practices across repo artifacts.
- Validate with
audit — treat any MISSING or FAIL as blocking.
- Iterate after real agent runs — patch gaps and re-audit.
Quick Start
python3 .agents/skills/harness-engineering-playbook/scripts/harness_wizard.py init <repo-path> --profile control
./scripts/bootstrap_harness.sh <repo-path>
python3 .agents/skills/harness-engineering-playbook/scripts/harness_wizard.py audit <repo-path>
Profiles
| Profile | Scope |
|---|
baseline | Core harness artifacts only |
control | Baseline + control-system primitives |
full | Control + entropy controls, nightly audit, CI |
Source
OpenAI Harness Engineering guide: https://openai.com/index/harness-engineering/
License
MIT
