Evolving Harness

A self-improving harness for AI-assisted software development, built on a flat catalog of reusable Agent Skills. Each skill is a self-contained folder; on top of the catalog, the Evolving Harness adds a lifecycle router, four themed plugin bundles, and a session-end loop that turns each session's lessons back into skills.

There are two ways to use this repo, and they don't interfere:

1. Flat catalog — pull individual skills into any project (unchanged).
2. Plugin bundles — install a whole themed bundle through the Claude Code plugin marketplace.

The flat catalog (unchanged)

Install skills using any compatible Agent Skills package manager, or copy individual skill folders directly into your project:

npx skills add Harduex/skills

Each skill follows the Agent Skills specification — browse the folders to see what's available. The root folders remain the source of truth; plugins/ is generated output and is never hand-edited.

The Evolving Harness framework

Consult the using-evolving-harness router skill at the start of any non-trivial task. It routes the work through a gated lifecycle (frame → design → plan → test-first → build → review → land) and, before a session ends, runs the evolution loop (save lessons, extract new skills, re-tune the repo).

Bundles

Bundle	What it's for
harness-evolution	The core self-improvement loop: extract skills from sessions, save learned lessons, analyze agent sessions, and evolve the repo. Includes the router and output-style setup.
delivery-lifecycle	Gated idea-to-shipped pipeline: plan, design, spec, test cases, autonomous build loop, review, verification, checkpoint — plus formal verification, functional-programming guidance, ASD-STE100-derived standards for code and documents, and site refinement.
git-ops	Git hygiene and delivery ops: linear history, fixup distribution, PR comment handling, shipped-state audits, secret-leak audits.
thinking	Reasoning and research toolkit: deep research, adversarial questioning, zero-assumption analysis, teaching, quick-wins triage.

Every skill belongs to exactly one bundle; the flat catalog still lets you install any skill individually.

Install a bundle

/plugin marketplace add Harduex/skills
/plugin install harness-evolution@harduex
/reload-plugins

Swap harness-evolution for any bundle above. The marketplace is named harduex. Use /plugin list and /plugin marketplace list to see what's installed.

Uninstall

/plugin uninstall harness-evolution@harduex
/plugin marketplace remove harduex
/reload-plugins

Maintaining the bundles

bundles.json is the single source of truth for bundle membership and the version. Regenerate the plugins/ output after any change:

python3 scripts/generate_bundles.py          # regenerate plugins/
python3 scripts/generate_bundles.py --check   # validate only (used in CI)

Cut a release with:

python3 scripts/bump_version.py [major|minor|patch]

which bumps the version in bundles.json, prepends a CHANGELOG.md entry, and prints the git tag command. Versioning: major = a skill removed/renamed or a lifecycle change; minor = bundle membership change; patch = wording, script, or CI fixes.

Deploying a new or updated skill

Follow this exact order when a skill is added, edited, or renamed and you're asked to deploy it. Never hand-edit plugins/ — it is generated.

1. Author the skill at the flat root — a folder named exactly as the skill, containing SKILL.md with valid frontmatter (name matching the folder, non-empty description). See write-a-skill/. Editing an existing skill in place needs no other structural change.
2. Decide bundle membership. A new skill joins exactly one bundle in bundles.json (add its folder name to that bundle's skills list). Renames must be updated in bundles.json too. A pure edit to an existing skill changes nothing here.
3. Regenerate, validate, and commit the change: python3 scripts/generate_bundles.py then python3 scripts/generate_bundles.py --check; run python3 -m unittest discover -s tests. Commit the root skill change, bundles.json, and the regenerated plugins/ together.
4. Bump the version on the now-clean tree (bump_version.py refuses a dirty tree so the bump stays an isolated, reviewable change): python3 scripts/bump_version.py [major|minor|patch] — a wording-only skill edit is a patch — then fill in the new CHANGELOG.md entry.
5. Regenerate and commit the release: rerun the generate/check/test commands from step 3, then commit bundles.json, CHANGELOG.md, and plugins/ as the release commit. Get the human's approval before pushing.
6. Push and tag (human-gated): git push origin master, then push the tag the bump printed (git tag vX.Y.Z && git push origin vX.Y.Z) and, if desired, gh release create vX.Y.Z.

Both install paths pick the change up automatically: npx skills add Harduex/skills sees the flat folder, and bundle users get it on their next /plugin update of the affected bundle.

Releasing the agentic-notebook plugin (cross-repo)

The harduex marketplace also serves agentic-notebook, which lives in its own repo. Its marketplace entry pins a commit sha, so a release there does not reach users until the pin is updated here:

1. Release in the agentic-notebook repo as usual (its own version and history).
2. In .claude-plugin/marketplace.json, update the agentic-notebook entry's sha to the new release commit.
3. Commit and push this repo. Do not run bump_version.py — it governs only the four bundles' shared version, not this plugin.

Creating skills

See the write-a-skill/ folder for the authoring guide.

License

MIT