agent-harness-design skillA
agent-harness-design is agent-read markdown (skill) from yeaight7/agent-powerups: Use when designing tool definitions for a new agent or subagent, an agent shows high retry rates, ambiguous tool invocations, or silent failures, or an existing agent harness needs a quality review..
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
# Agent Harness Design
Use when designing or improving how an agent invokes tools, handles errors, and decides when to stop.
## When to Use
- Designing tool definitions for a new agent or subagent
- Observing high retry rates or ambiguous tool invocations
- Agent is failing silently or completing without verifying outcomes
- Reviewing an existing agent harness for quality issues
## Tool Design Rules
### Naming
- Use explicit, stable names: `read_file`, `run_tests`, `apply_patch`
- No generic names: `do_action`, `execute`, `handle`
- One tool per distinct operation; do not overload parameters to compensate
### Schema
Keep tool inputs narrow:
- Required fields only; no optional fields that change behavior
- Use enums for mode/type values — never free-text strings that require parsing
- Validate at the boundary; reject malformed input with a clear error, not a fallback
```json
{
"name": "run_tests",
"parameters": {
"path": { "type": "string", "description": "Path to test file or directory" },
"filter": { "type": "string", "description": "Optional test name filter" }
}
}
```
### Output Shape
Every tool response must include:
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add yeaight7/agent-powerups/agent-harness-design@git:20260606.19f992emdr add yeaight7/agent-powerups/agent-harness-design@sha256:459f694d55d46eebPin 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_ejgfqghwinlcos5g)
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Versions
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260606.19f992e latest | 2026-06-06 | 19f992e | 4,355 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260503.191daa7 | 2026-05-03 | 191daa7 | 3,741 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 (4355 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
yeaight7/agent-powerups · 6 stars · license Apache-2.0 · pushed 2026-09-21 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_ejgfqghwinlcos5g GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=yeaight7/agent-powerups/agent-harness-design GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/459f694d55d46eeb9a11980385f6012e64602bc7b8c7123e22dacb4fde9232ed
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.
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