harness SKILL.md skillA
harness from stone16/harness-engineering-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add stone16/harness-engineering-skills/harness@v0.17.0Pins v0.17.0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- stone16/harness-engineering-skills
- Path
plugins/harness-engineering-skills/skills/harness/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 5
- Latest version
- v0.17.0, committed Sep 7, 2026
- First version recorded
- May 9, 2026
- Size
- 8,365 bytes
- Repository stars
- 31
- License
- Apache-2.0
Plan or execute complex tasks through the harness checkpoint, evaluation, and retro workflow.
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 — Multi-Agent Orchestration
Orchestrate complex tasks through Planning -> Generation -> Evaluation -> Retro.
Fresh sub-agents per checkpoint prevent drift. Retro accumulates learning across tasks.
## Protocol Loading
This skill splits into two protocol files to minimize context usage. **Read the one matching your intent before proceeding.**
| Intent | Trigger phrases | Action |
|--------|----------------|--------|
| **Planning** | "harness plan", "harness this task", "use harness", "harness spec" | Read [references/planning-protocol.md](references/planning-protocol.md) |
| **Execution** | "harness continue", "harness execute <task-id>", "harness <spec-name>" | Read [references/execution-protocol.md](references/execution-protocol.md) |
**After loading the protocol, follow it completely.** Do not proceed without reading the appropriate reference file.
## Recommended Workflow
```
Session 1 (Claude Code) → Brainstorm + Spec → Spec review with cross-model evaluator
↓ spec approved
Session 2 (Codex) → Execute checkpoints → Evaluate → E2E → Full-verify → PR → Retro
↕ Claude CLI as review-loop peer (cross-model quality gate)
```
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add stone16/harness-engineering-skills/harness@sha256:fa569f7c62b4079aThe line at the top of this page pins the label v0.17.0, 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_swzqncutdkdpdqw5)
5 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 5 versions of this file, between May 9, 2026 and Sep 7, 2026, about one every 30 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v0.17.0 latest | 2026-09-07 | 29b727e | 8,365 B | A | view · diff |
| v0.17.0 | 2026-05-23 | 665f0fe | 8,875 B | A | view · diff |
| v0.17.0 | 2026-05-09 | 41317e1 | 8,566 B | A | view · diff |
| v0.16.0 | 2026-05-09 | 7e98b49 | 8,566 B | A | view · diff |
| v0.16.0 | 2026-05-09 | 2121730 | 8,388 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 (8365 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
stone16/harness-engineering-skills · 31 stars · license Apache-2.0 · pushed 2026-09-07 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_swzqncutdkdpdqw5 GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=stone16/harness-engineering-skills/harness GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/fa569f7c62b4079a69f6be9d91a336d52d82027b673b8ffdf30906e50bacc1d4
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.
More from stone16/harness-engineering-skills
Every file in stone16/harness-engineering-skills