moai-meta-harness

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Meta-harness skill that designs project-specific agent teams and generates the skills they use. Adapts the revfactory/harness 7-Phase workflow to MoAI's agent ecosystem. Triggered by /moai project Socratic interview and produces dynamic harness-* skills + .claude/agents/harness/* + .moai/harness/* artifacts.

modu-ai By modu-ai schedule Updated 6/3/2026

name: moai-meta-harness description: > DEPRECATED — legacy 7-Phase meta-harness. Redirects to the v4 harness Builder (/moai:harness ) which replaces the static 7-Phase workflow with an orchestrator-direct 4-phase Builder (ANALYZE / PLAN / GENERATE / ACTIVATE) + a manifest-driven dynamic-workflow Runner. Retained as the redirect source for backward-compat invocation paths; the 7-Phase body below is preserved as historical reference, NOT for new harness creation.

when_to_use: > Use the v4 Builder instead: issue /moai:harness to enter Context-First Discovery (domain / goal / constraints / scope extraction) then the orchestrator-direct Builder. This legacy skill fires ONLY on backward-compat invocation paths that still reference the 7-Phase workflow; on any such invocation it surfaces a deprecation notice and redirects to v4.

license: Apache-2.0 compatibility: Designed for Claude Code (v2.1.111+) allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Grep, Glob, Bash user-invocable: false metadata: version: "0.2.0" category: "meta" status: "deprecated" updated: "2026-06-20" modularized: "false" tags: "meta-skill, harness, deprecated, v4-redirect, agent-team-architect, apache-2-0-attribution" upstream_source: "revfactory/harness" generated_by: "moai-adk" superseded_by: "/moai:harness v4 Builder"

MoAI Extension: Progressive Disclosure

progressive_disclosure: enabled: true level1_tokens: 100 level2_tokens: 5000

moai-meta-harness (DEPRECATED — redirect to v4)

DEPRECATION NOTICE — This legacy 7-Phase meta-harness is superseded by the v4 harness Builder (/moai:harness <natural-language request>). The v4 design replaces the static 7-Phase workflow with:

  • An orchestrator-direct 4-phase Builder (ANALYZE -> PLAN -> GENERATE -> ACTIVATE) that holds the plan in Claude's session context and can call AskUserQuestion at the PLAN->GENERATE approval gate (first-class boundary).
  • A manifest-driven dynamic-workflow Runner (harness-<name>-run.js) that reads manifest.json and dispatches specialists per their declared primitive (sub-agent / dynamic-workflow / worktree / /goal / adversarial-fan-out) — no heuristic re-derivation.
  • Conditional sub-agent-granular worktree isolation (no mandatory top-level worktree; worktree only for conflict-prone parallel generation).
  • Signal-driven phase synthesis (not a fixed pipeline); the evaluator is conditional (skipped for tasks within the model's solo reliable range).

To create a new harness: issue /moai:harness <natural-language request> (e.g., /moai:harness build a harness for my-project's API development). The orchestrator runs Context-First Discovery on the request, derives a harness <name>, and enters the Builder. Do NOT use the 7-Phase workflow below for new harness creation.

What is preserved here: the 7-Phase body below is retained as the redirect source for backward-compat — so existing invocation paths that reference the legacy workflow land on a deprecation notice + redirect rather than a dead link. The 7-Phase content is historical reference material, NOT active workflow. The revfactory 7-Phase residual grep excludes this body precisely because it IS the redirect source.

Apache 2.0 Attribution: Adapted from revfactory/harness (Apache License 2.0). The 7-Phase workflow below is a MoAI adaptation of the upstream 6-Phase + Evolution Mechanism. See .claude/rules/moai/NOTICE.md for the full third-party notices and the harness policy for derivation history. The v4 Builder (the replacement) is documented in .claude/skills/moai/workflows/harness-builder.md.


v4 Redirect (the active path)

New harness creation: /moai:harness <natural-language request>

This routes to the v4 Builder (orchestrator-direct). The Builder:

  1. Context-First Discovery on the request (extract domain / goal / constraints / scope).
  2. AskUserQuestion Socratic rounds if clarity <100%; derives harness <name> from confirmed intent.
  3. Explicit approval gate (AskUserQuestion, PLAN->GENERATE boundary).
  4. ANALYZE / PLAN / GENERATE / ACTIVATE as orchestrator-direct phases.
  5. Emits 5 artifact types: entry command, Runner Workflow, specialists, companion skills, manifest.json.

Harness lifecycle (list / edit / remove): /moai:harness list|edit|remove <name>.

Harness execution: /harness:<name> (auto-generated thin-wrapper command -> the harness's Runner Workflow).

See harness-builder.md (companion workflow under moai/workflows/) for the full Builder contract and .claude/rules/moai/workflow/dynamic-workflows.md for the Runner's dynamic-workflow primitive.


Legacy 7-Phase Body (HISTORICAL REFERENCE — redirect source, NOT active)

The content below this separator is the original 7-Phase workflow, preserved verbatim as the redirect source. It is NOT the active harness-creation path. New harness creation MUST use /moai:harness <NL request> (v4) above. The revfactory 7-Phase residual grep excludes this body because it IS the legacy source being redirected away from.

Meta-factory skill that architects and generates project-specific agent teams. Adapts the revfactory/harness 7-Phase workflow to MoAI's agent ecosystem. Produces harness-* skills and agent definitions tailored to each project's domain.

Upstream: revfactory/harness (Apache-2.0) — "A meta-skill that designs domain-specific agent teams, defines specialized agents, and generates the skills they use." (2905 stars, 420 forks, created 2026-03-26)

Effectiveness data (design target): +60% avg quality score (49.5 → 79.3), 15/15 win rate, −32% variance (n=15, author-measured A/B, third-party replications pending). Source: Hwang, M. (2026). "Harness: Structured Pre-Configuration for Enhancing LLM Code Agent Output Quality." revfactory/claude-code-harness.


Quick Reference

When to Use

  • /moai project Phase 5+ runs and detects an absent .moai/harness/main.md
  • CLAUDE.md contains <!-- moai:harness-start --> markers (installed by the project-harness generation policy, not this skill)
  • User explicitly requests harness generation for their project domain

Key Outputs

Artifact Location Owner
Harness config .moai/harness/main.md + extension files this skill
Agent definitions .claude/agents/harness/*.md this skill
Domain skills .claude/skills/harness-*/SKILL.md this skill

All generated artifacts use the harness-* prefix — never moai-* (which is template-managed). The moai-harness-* prefix specifically denotes template-managed harness builders (moai-meta-harness, moai-harness-learner) and is NOT used by this generator's emissions.

6 Architectural Patterns (upstream)

Pipeline, Fan-out/Fan-in, Expert Pool, Producer-Reviewer, Supervisor, Hierarchical Delegation.

See phase walkthrough detail for pattern semantics and selection guidance.


Implementation Guide

7-Phase Workflow — Source Mapping

Each MoAI phase maps to upstream revfactory/harness phases (ref: https://github.com/revfactory/harness#workflow):

MoAI Phase Upstream Harness Phase Owning Agent Inputs Outputs
1. Discovery Phase 0 (audit) + Phase 1 domain analysis (Socratic) manager-spec User request answers.yaml
2. Analysis Phase 1 domain analysis (codebase scan) manager-spec + manager-strategy answers.yaml + repo state Analysis report
3. Synthesis Phase 2 team architecture design manager-spec Analysis report SPEC doc with EARS
4. Skeleton Phase 3 agent definition generation meta-harness (this skill) SPEC doc .moai/harness/main.md + extensions
5. Customization Phase 4 skill generation meta-harness (this skill) Skeleton .claude/agents/harness/*.md + .claude/skills/harness-*/SKILL.md
6. Evaluation Phase 5 integration + Phase 6 validation sync-auditor Generated artifacts Sprint Contract score
7. Iteration Harness Evolution Mechanism + Phase 7-5 ops LEARNING-001 (separate SPEC) Scoring deltas Factory feedback (out of scope)

Phase Summaries

  • Phase 1 (Discovery): manager-spec conducts 16-question Socratic interview (owned by the project-harness generation policy). Output: .moai/harness/answers.yaml
  • Phase 2 (Analysis): manager-spec + manager-strategy scan repo (file structure, existing agents/skills, dependency files, test coverage)
  • Phase 3 (Synthesis): manager-spec produces SPEC with EARS requirements selecting one of 6 architectural patterns, defining agent roles, skill categories, acceptance criteria
  • Phase 4 (Skeleton): This skill generates harness skeleton — main.md, agents.md, skills.md extensions, agent definition stubs
  • Phase 5 (Customization): This skill fills the skeleton with domain-specific content referencing existing MoAI agents (manager-, expert-, builder-harness, sync-auditor)
  • Phase 6 (Evaluation): sync-auditor runs Sprint Contract protocol (design constitution §11.5) — 4 dimensions, pass threshold 0.75 (FROZEN floor 0.60)
  • Phase 7 (Iteration): Owned by the harness-learning policy (out of scope for this skill)

See Phase 1-7 detailed walkthrough + agent involvement for full per-phase activity, inputs, outputs, and cross-reference notes.

MoAI Agent Cross-References

This skill orchestrates but does NOT replace existing agents. All agents referenced are static MoAI agents — no new agents are introduced. Categories: Planning & Strategy (manager-spec, manager-strategy, plan-auditor), Implementation (expert-*, manager-develop, manager-quality), Builders (builder-harness with artifact_type=agent|skill|plugin), Workflow Managers (manager-develop, manager-quality, manager-docs, manager-git), Quality (sync-auditor).

See agent cross-references full inventory for per-agent role and phase mapping.

Generated Harness Validation

After Phase 5 (Customization) emits new harness-* skills, this meta-harness automatically hands off to sync-auditor using the Sprint Contract protocol (design constitution §11.5).

4-Dimension Sprint Contract Assessment:

Dimension What is Checked
Functionality Agent definitions execute their stated purpose; skills have valid trigger conditions
Security No credentials in generated files; tool permissions follow least-privilege
Craft YAML frontmatter valid (CSV allowed-tools, quoted metadata); progressive disclosure configured
Consistency Domain alignment with answers.yaml; naming follows harness-* convention

Scoring:

  • Pass threshold: 0.75 default (configurable via design.yaml pass_threshold)
  • FROZEN floor: 0.60 (design constitution §2, immutable)
  • Scoring rubric: sync-auditor rubric anchoring (design constitution §12, Mechanism 1)

For Phase 3b — HRN-003 Hierarchical Scoring (when harness.yaml sets evaluator_mode: hierarchical), see HRN-003 hierarchical scoring detail.

Design Target Reference: The +60% effectiveness figure from Hwang (2026) — 49.5 → 79.3 in a 15-run A/B study (author-measured, third-party replications pending) — is the design intent for this validation hook. The governing requirement explicitly states this does not require runtime measurement.


Namespace Separation

[HARD] Skills + Agents namespace는 "범용 배포" vs "사용자 생성" 으로 명확히 분리된다.

Distributed (template-managed)

moai-* namespace (모든 prefix 포함: moai-foundation-*, moai-workflow-*, moai-domain-*, moai-ref-*, moai-meta-*, moai-harness-*) is moai-adk distributed. moai update 가 sync (삭제 후 신규 설치). 사용자 직접 수정은 다음 update로 overwrite.

본 namespace의 하네스 자산:

  • moai-meta-harness (this skill — 7-Phase generator)
  • moai-harness-learner (lifecycle 관리 빌더, project-agnostic)

User-Generated (this meta-harness emits)

harness-* namespace and .claude/agents/harness/ directory are user-owned. Created by this meta-harness during /moai project Phase 5+ interview, tailored to the user's project domain.

User-generated artifacts:

  • .claude/skills/harness-<domain>/SKILL.md — domain-specific skill (e.g., harness-trading, harness-llm-cascade)
  • .claude/agents/harness/<role>.md — agent definition (e.g., .claude/agents/harness/trading-specialist.md)
  • .moai/harness/main.md — harness entry point + extensions

Contract

  • [HARD] This meta-harness MUST emit user-generated skills with harness-* prefix ONLY. Emitting a moai-* (including moai-harness-*) prefixed file during Phase 4 or 5 is a contract violation.
  • [HARD] moai update MUST NOT delete, modify, or sync harness-* skills or .claude/agents/harness/* files. Backup before update is mandatory.
  • [HARD] Template (internal/template/templates/) MUST NOT contain harness-* skills or .claude/agents/harness/*-specialist.md files. Leak detection triggers cleanup chore.
  • [HARD] harness-* (user-owned) vs moai-harness-* (template builder) substring 구분: prefix 매칭은 정확한 startsWith 비교를 사용 (*harness-* substring 패턴은 false positive 위험으로 금지).
  • [HARD] Generator emits harness-* prefix ONLY. The build enforcement recognizes harness-* as user-owned, with the legacy prefixed form retained during a backward-compat deprecation window. SSOT: the harness namespace separation policy.

Generated-Agent Self-Activation Contract

[HARD] Each generated .claude/agents/harness/<role>.md agent MUST be emitted with both of the following frontmatter fields so the generated harness self-activates when the agent is delegated:

  • A skills: frontmatter entry preloading the agent's companion harness-<domain>-* skill. This makes the domain skill load deterministically when the agent runs, rather than relying on auto-discovery which fails silently when the companion skill is absent from the agent's context.
  • A non-empty, trigger-shaped description frontmatter field naming the domain + the observable task-shape, so the orchestrator's .moai/harness/main.md Task-Shape Routing table can dispatch to it.

Both fields are enforced at runtime by the Phase-6 post-generation smoke gate (moai doctor harness, see the project/meta-harness.md workflow Phase 7.3): a generated agent with an empty description, a dangling skills: reference (pointing at a non-existent harness-* dir), or NO skills: key at all causes the gate to FAIL. A skills:-less agent must not pass silently — that is the auto-discovery failure mode this contract closes. Full emission template + example: project/meta-harness.md § 6.4.1.

Storage Roots

Namespace / Path Location Source moai update 동작
moai-* skills (incl. moai-harness-* builders) .claude/skills/moai-*/ template 삭제 후 신규 설치 (overwrite)
harness-* skills .claude/skills/harness-*/ user project (this meta-harness emits — intent declaration) 절대 삭제/modify 금지 + 백업 보존
MoAI agents (retained 7, FLAT) .claude/agents/moai/ template 삭제 후 신규 설치 (overwrite)
Generated harness agents .claude/agents/harness/ user project (this meta-harness emits) 절대 삭제/modify 금지 + 백업 보존
Harness config .moai/harness/ user project 절대 삭제 금지 + 백업 보존

Cross-References

  • .claude/skills/moai-meta-harness/SKILL.md § Namespace Separation (this file — canonical generator-side namespace contract)
  • .claude/rules/moai/development/skill-authoring.md § Skills Namespace Policy
  • .claude/rules/moai/development/agent-authoring.md § Agent Directory Convention

Trigger Mechanics

Auto-load Conditions:

  1. /moai project Phase 5+ runs and .moai/harness/main.md is absent
  2. CLAUDE.md contains <!-- moai:harness-start --> markers. These markers are installed by the project-harness generation policy during project initialization; this skill does not install them.

Frontmatter Triggers:

This skill loads when any of the following match:

  • Keywords: harness, project-init, meta-skill, agent-team, harness-evolve
  • Agents: manager-spec, manager-strategy, sync-auditor
  • Phases: plan, run, sync

Deferred Execution Contract:

This skill provides the workflow recipe and agent cross-references. It does NOT execute /moai project Phase 5+ logic — that invocation is owned by the project-harness generation policy. The separation is intentional:

  • This skill = capability (what to do and how)
  • PROJECT-HARNESS-001 = invocation wiring (when to do it)

Out of Scope

The following capabilities are explicitly NOT implemented by this skill:

  • 5-layer integration mechanism — owned by the project-harness generation policy. The integration with /moai project phases, hook installation, and CLAUDE.md marker management are all delegated to that SPEC.
  • 16-question Socratic interview — owned by the project-harness generation policy. The manager-spec conducts the interview under that SPEC's control.
  • Auto-evolution loop — owned by the harness-learning policy. The learning feedback mechanism (Phase 7) and delta capture are separate work items outside Wave A.
  • Modification of .claude/agents/{moai,harness}/ or static moai-* skills — this meta-harness generates only harness-* prefixed artifacts and has no write access to MoAI's own agent/skill directories.

Works Well With

  • moai-foundation-core — SPEC-First DDD and TRUST 5 quality gates
  • moai-foundation-cc — Claude Code skill/agent authoring standards
  • manager-spec — Conducts Discovery and Synthesis phases
  • sync-auditor — Sprint Contract evaluation in Phase 6
  • builder-harness (artifact_type=agent|skill|plugin) — Artifact generation helper

Upstream: revfactory/harness (Apache-2.0) | MoAI adaptation: the harness policy | v4 supersession: the v4 harness Builder redesign See .claude/rules/moai/NOTICE.md for full Apache 2.0 attribution.

Install via CLI
npx skills add https://github.com/modu-ai/moai-adk --skill moai-meta-harness
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