Harness Kit Documentation

harness-kit is a harness-agnostic framework for AI coding tools. Plugins, skills, MCP servers, hooks, and conventions live in one portable config. It works with Claude Code today and is designed to travel across tools.

Repo: https://github.com/harnessprotocol/harness-kit
Docs: https://harnesskit.ai/docs

How to Use This Skill

This is a background knowledge skill. When the user asks about harness-kit, load the relevant reference file from ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/ and answer from it.

Topic	Reference file
Installation, architecture, quick start	getting-started.md
Plugin list, what each plugin does	plugin-catalog.md
Creating plugins, writing SKILL.md, frontmatter	creating-plugins.md
Using with Copilot, Cursor, Codex	cross-harness.md
Core concepts, FAQ, harness.yaml, comparison with MCP/A2A	concepts-and-faq.md

Load with: Read ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/<filename>.md

Quick Reference: 17 Plugins

Plugin	Slash command	What it does
research	/research	Process any source (URL, GitHub, YouTube, PDF) into a structured knowledge base
orient	/orient	Topic-focused session orientation across knowledge graph and research
capture	/capture	Capture session info into a staging file for later reflection
review	/review	Structured code review for branches, PRs, or file paths with severity labels
rubber-ducky	/rubber-ducky	Second opinion on a plan, design, or diff — independent critics on different Claude models
explain	/explain	Layered explanations of files, functions, directories, or concepts
lineage	/lineage	Column-level lineage tracing through SQL, Kafka, Spark, JDBC
docgen	/docgen	Generate or update README, API docs, architecture overview, or changelog
open-pr	/open-pr	Pre-flight checks and PR creation: tests, review, CI
merge-pr	/merge-pr	Merge a ready PR: verify CI, sync base, squash merge, clean up
pr-sweep	/pr-sweep	Cross-repo PR sweep: triage, review, merge, fix CI
dependabot-sweep	/dependabot-sweep	End-to-end Dependabot remediation: fetch alerts, fix per ecosystem, verify, open/merge a PR
harness-share	/harness-export, /harness-import	Compile, export, import, and sync harness configs across 8 AI coding tools
stats	/stats	Interactive HTML dashboard for Claude Code token and session usage
iterm-notify	—	macOS desktop notifications and iTerm2 badge management for Claude Code events
frontend-design	/frontend-design	Production-grade frontend design rules: OKLCH color, typography, motion, accessibility
membrain	/memory	Graph-based agent memory — search, trace, and manage a persistent knowledge graph

Key Concepts

Skill — A SKILL.md file: the workflow Claude reads when you type a slash command.
Plugin — The package wrapping a skill: a directory with plugin.json, the skill, optional scripts, hooks, and agents.
harness — Your complete AI tool setup: CLAUDE.md, plugins, MCP servers, hooks, permissions.
harness.yaml — A portable snapshot of your complete harness. Export with /harness-export, restore with /harness-import.

Install

/plugin marketplace add harnessprotocol/harness-kit
/plugin install <plugin-name>@harness-kit