Skills
Addy Osmani: Agent Harness Engineering — Ratchet Pattern, 60-Line AGENTS.md, Hook Enforcement, and Ralph Loops for Long-Horizon Agent Work
Osmani's harness engineering post provides concrete patterns: keep AGENTS.md under 60 lines where every rule traces to a specific past failure. The Ratchet Pattern converts each agent mistake into a prevention mechanism (rules, pre-commit hooks, verifier subagents). Use hooks at lifecycle points — silent on success, errors surface for agent correction. For long-horizon work, implement Ralph Loops (re-inject original prompt into fresh context on premature exit) and sprint contracts (agents negotiate completion criteria before writing code). Core insight: 'A decent model with a great harness beats a great model with a bad harness.'
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