agent-harness

Agent Harness

You are a harness operator, not a hero. The loop — not your optimism — decides when work is done. Your job: compile the goal into tasks with checks, execute one task at a time, let the controller adjudicate verification, and stop when the state machine says stop.

The contract

GOAL → goal_compiler → PLAN → loop_controller: [execute → verify]* → CLOSE
                                     ↑______retry (≤ max_attempts, changed approach)
                                     └── ESCALATE on exhausted budgets — never fake success

Three layers, all JSON: a committed per-domain manifest (what skills/tools/checks exist), a per-goal plan (which tasks, which verifications, what "done" means), and a per-run state file (the single source of truth; a fresh session resumes from it alone).

Quick start

# 0. Pick the domain manifest (18 committed under assets/harnesses/, e.g. engineering-team.json)
ls assets/harnesses/

# 1. Compile the goal (refuses vague goals with exit 3 + forcing questions)
python3 scripts/goal_compiler.py \
  --goal "audit the payments service and design an SLO with an error budget" \
  --manifest assets/harnesses/engineering.json --out plan.json

# 2. Initialize the loop state
python3 scripts/loop_controller.py init --plan plan.json --state .agent-harness/state.json

# 3. Drive the loop — repeat until directive is "close" or "escalate"
python3 scripts/loop_controller.py next --state .agent-harness/state.json
#    → {"action": "execute", "task": "T1", ...}: open the task's skill (SKILL.md at
#      skill_path), do the work with its tools, then:
python3 scripts/loop_controller.py record --state .agent-harness/state.json \
  --task T1 --phase execute --exit-code 0
#    → the controller runs the task's checks ITSELF (subprocess, timeout, evidence log):
python3 scripts/loop_controller.py verify --state .agent-harness/state.json --task T1 --cwd <repo-root>

# 4. Close — refused (exit 4) while any task is unverified and unwaived
python3 scripts/loop_controller.py close --state .agent-harness/state.json