harness

name	harness
description	Maintain Gradient's repo-local agent harness: skills, agents, settings, repo brief, and gate-aligned instructions. Trigger: /harness, /skill, /primitive.
argument-hint	[create|eval|lint|sync|audit] [target]

/harness

Harness work in this repo is itself a Gradient Harness artifact. Keep it cross-harness, public-safe, and honest about the absence of app CI.

Layout

• Shared skill root: .agents/skills/
• Shared agent root: .agents/agents/
• Claude bridge: .claude/skills/
• Codex bridge: .codex/skills/
• Pi bridge: .pi/skills/
• Claude agent bridge: .claude/agents/
• Native manifest: harness/default/manifest.json
• Machine brief: docs/gradient-machine-brief.md

Rules

• Shared skills are canonical; harness-specific dirs are symlink bridges.
• Shared agents are canonical; harness-specific agent dirs are projections.
• Substantial workflow skills must declare triad handling with a ## Triad Use section or an explicit skip rationale. Use references/triad-loop.md for the planner, executor, critic, operator decision, and evidence contract.
• Workflow skills must cite this exact gate: The load-bearing ship gate is ./scripts/validate.sh, plus reviewer judgment for lifecycle semantics in docs/architecture.md and docs/module-contracts.md when docs change.
• Universal skills may remain verbatim.
• Repo-tailoring logic must be source-backed. Do not hardcode product gates, invariants, or workflow doctrine from a language, framework, or prior incident. Extract them from target repo guidance, committed executable gates, selected profiles or policy packs, or operator input. Unknowns become readiness work.
• Supply-chain release-delay guidance must come from the selected profile, standards manifest, policy pack, target repo guidance, or operator input. Harnesses may instruct agents to use the configured package-manager adapter, but must not infer npm, Bun, pip, Cargo, Maven, Go, container registry, or other ecosystem commands from a package manifest alone.
• Repo-tailoring changes must include contrasting fixtures: one documented nonstandard gate and one sparse repo proving Gradient does not guess from a package manifest alone.
• Do not add fake command allowlists to .codex/config.toml.
• Do not depend on Spellbook paths or .spellbook files for the native default.
• Preserve public-safe boundaries in examples and skill text.

Audit

Check bridge resolution, native agent presence, resolved harness manifest, settings syntax, public-safe boundaries, and gate sentence drift.

Triad Use

Use the planner/executor/critic triad when harness work changes skill contracts, generated harness artifacts, policy/context/work/fleet module boundaries, repo-tailoring behavior, or user-facing workflow guidance.

Planner must produce:

• goal and non-goals;
• repo anchors and authority order;
• executor ownership boundary;
• executable evidence oracle.

Executor must:

• stay inside the ownership boundary;
• use the repo's normal edit/test workflow;
• report changed files and evidence.

Critic must:

• review cold against the planner packet;
• fail on missing evidence, module-boundary drift, unnecessary complexity, or unapproved scope growth;
• give concrete fixes for every blocker.

The lead agent/operator decides whether to accept, loop, or stop.

References

• references/triad-loop.md: provider-neutral planner/executor/critic loop for substantial skills.