agent-harness

agent-harness is an open-source workflow skill for Claude Code, published by alirezarezvani. Its author describes it as: “Turn any domain folder of skills into a bounded agentic loop: compile a goal into a verifiable task plan, execute tasks with the domain's own tools, verify every task with machine-run checks, retry with caps, escalate…”. The project has 25k stars on GitHub and is available under the MIT license. Add it to your setup with `/plugin marketplace add alirezarezvani/claude-skills`.

What agent-harness does

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.

Installation

Add agent-harness to your agent with:

/plugin marketplace add alirezarezvani/claude-skills

Always review a skill's source before installing it. This command comes from the skill's public repository; the linked repo is the source of truth for exact setup steps.

What's inside

The SKILL.md for agent-harness is organised into these sections:

• The contract
• Quick start
• Hard rules
• Exit codes (branch on these mechanically)
• Verifiable success
• Related skills

When to use it

Reach for agent-harness when you want workflow help from Claude Code without writing the same instructions every session. Load the skill and the agent picks it up automatically for relevant tasks.

Strengths

• Clear MIT license — safe to read and adapt
• Ships in alirezarezvani/claude-skills, an established project with 24,617 GitHub stars
• Declares compatibility with Claude Code
• Actively maintained (recent commits)

Topics

Frequently asked questions

What does agent-harness do?

Turn any domain folder of skills into a bounded agentic loop: compile a goal into a verifiable task plan, execute tasks with the domain's own tools, verify every task with machine-run checks, retry with caps, escalate to a human when budgets exhaust, and refuse to close until everything is verified or explicitly waived. Use when you want an agent or subagent to pick up a goal and drive it to a verified close across one of this repo's 18 domains ('run this goal through the engineering harness', 'set up an agentic loop for marketing work', 'make the finance domain self-verifying'). NOT for authoring Claude Code Workflow-tool .js scripts (workflow-builder), N-agent tournaments on one task (agenthub), single-file metric optimization (autoresearch-agent), or discovering published loop recipes (loop-library).

How do I install agent-harness?

Run /plugin marketplace add alirezarezvani/claude-skills in your agent, then reload your skills. Review the source at https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills before installing.

Is agent-harness free to use?

Yes. agent-harness is free and open source under the MIT license, so you can read, run, and adapt it within that license's terms.

Which agents does agent-harness work with?

agent-harness declares compatibility with Claude Code. Agent Skills use a portable SKILL.md format, so other compatible clients can usually load it too.

Where does agent-harness come from?

agent-harness ships inside alirezarezvani/claude-skills, a repository that contains 41 catalogued skills in total. The repository's 24,617 GitHub stars apply to that whole collection, not to this skill on its own.