spike-contract skillA
spike-contract is agent-read markdown (skill) from jakeselby/agent-harness: Frame a spike so its result is a decision: the question, the cheapest experiment, a numeric exit criterion, the measured result, the machine it ran on. Use when asked to "spike", "prototype to find out", "de-risk", or "check whether X is feasible", and when writing the spikes section of a plan or README..
Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.
What the file says
# The spike contract A spike answers one question with the cheapest experiment that can answer it, and it is judged against a number written down before the experiment ran. Everything else is a prototype looking for a purpose. ## Before running anything, write the row Each spike gets one entry, in the project's spikes README or the plan's addendum: - **Question** — one sentence, answerable yes/no or with a number. "Can the core simulate 14 million cells at one tick per second on the target machine?" - **Cheapest experiment** — the smallest thing that produces the number. A throwaway script, a synthetic dataset, a stub of the real path. Name what is faked. - **Exit criterion** — the number and the comparison. "Under 800 ms per tick, mean of 100 ticks." Written before the run, not adjusted after. - **Status** — `not started`, `running`, `passed`, `failed`, `inconclusive`, with the date. - **Machine** — the hardware and OS the budget was measured on. A budget measured on a laptop does not transfer to CI or to the target machine without saying so. ## Run it - Record the exact command and the raw output, in the row or in a linked file. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add jakeselby/agent-harness/spike-contract@git:20260923.097bdb0mdr add jakeselby/agent-harness/spike-contract@sha256:606fdd4cc82d06a8Pin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_cqtaeatjilrccicf)
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Versions
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260923.097bdb0 latest | 2026-09-23 | 097bdb0 | 2,380 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260919.6cf18f7 | 2026-09-19 | 6cf18f7 | 2,428 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (2380 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
jakeselby/agent-harness · 17 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-25 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_cqtaeatjilrccicf GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=jakeselby/agent-harness/spike-contract GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/606fdd4cc82d06a891c45ecd3fd6df472cd6d233d334ba5c65ce6e3322752d71
Your agent does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.