harness-engineering-playbook SKILL.md skillA
harness-engineering-playbook from broomva/skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add broomva/skills/harness-engineering-playbook@git:20260628.aa6a326Pins git:20260628.aa6a326 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- broomva/skills
- Path
skills/governance/harness-engineering-playbook/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 2
- Latest version
- git:20260628.aa6a326, committed Jun 28, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jun 28, 2026
- Size
- 5,028 bytes
- Repository stars
- 5
- License
- MIT
Implement OpenAI Harness Engineering practices in any repository. Use when setting up or refactoring agent-first workflows, writing or upgrading AGENTS.md and PLANS.md, creating deterministic smoke/test/lint/typecheck harness commands, defining strict architecture boundaries and data-shape contracts, wiring observability from day 1, and adding entropy-control checks plus CI automation for reliable autonomous runs.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Harness Engineering Playbook Use this skill to operationalize the practices from OpenAI's Harness Engineering guide in a repo that agents can run against repeatedly and safely. ## What To Load - Use `references/openai-harness-practices.md` for the full practice-to-artifact mapping. - Use `references/rollout-checklist.md` for phased adoption in active repos. - Use `assets/templates/` when creating or updating harness files. ## Inputs - Target repository path. - Existing command surface (`make`, `npm`, `cargo`, `pytest`, etc.). - Existing CI workflows and branch protections. ## Workflow 1. Baseline the repo and detect existing workflows. 2. Bootstrap harness artifacts and templates. 3. Apply all nine Harness Engineering practices. 4. Run harness audit checks and repair gaps. 5. Iterate after real agent runs. ## Step 1: Baseline The Repo - Identify language/toolchain and canonical entrypoints. - Inventory existing checks, scripts, and CI jobs. - Record current pain points for agent runs: setup drift, unclear docs, flaky tests, missing trace IDs, slow loops. Use a short baseline note inside `PLANS.md` so decisions remain durable. ## Step 2: Bootstrap Harness Artifacts …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add broomva/skills/harness-engineering-playbook@sha256:c666ddd61a42b510The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260628.aa6a326, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_mirwgldz3t2krbhj)
4 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 2 versions of this file, all committed on Jun 28, 2026.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260628.aa6a326 latest | 2026-06-28 | aa6a326 | 5,028 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260628.9edbf07 | 2026-06-28 | 9edbf07 | 2,398 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 (5028 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
broomva/skills · 5 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-07 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_mirwgldz3t2krbhj GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=broomva/skills/harness-engineering-playbook GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/c666ddd61a42b5101132d8ba3cacd5ab78262fb3a642fdae6581af6ee8ac4b94
Your AI assistant 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.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.