Agent Harness Construction

agent-harness-construction

Design and optimize AI agent action spaces, tool definitions, and observation formatting for higher completion rates. Use when defining or revising an agent's tool set, action space, or observation format.

affaan-m/ecc·1.1Kinstalls273.3Kstars

SKILL.md

Full skill instructions

Agent Harness Construction

Use this skill when you are improving how an agent plans, calls tools, recovers from errors, and converges on completion.

Core Model

Agent output quality is constrained by:

Action space quality
Observation quality
Recovery quality
Context budget quality

Action Space Design

Use stable, explicit tool names.
Keep inputs schema-first and narrow.
Return deterministic output shapes.
Avoid catch-all tools unless isolation is impossible.

Granularity Rules

Use micro-tools for high-risk operations (deploy, migration, permissions).
Use medium tools for common edit/read/search loops.
Use macro-tools only when round-trip overhead is the dominant cost.

Observation Design

Every tool response should include:

status: success|warning|error
summary: one-line result
next_actions: actionable follow-ups
artifacts: file paths / IDs

Error Recovery Contract

For every error path, include:

root cause hint
safe retry instruction
explicit stop condition

Context Budgeting

Keep system prompt minimal and invariant.
Move large guidance into skills loaded on demand.
Prefer references to files over inlining long documents.
Compact at phase boundaries, not arbitrary token thresholds.

Architecture Pattern Guidance

ReAct: best for exploratory tasks with uncertain path.
Function-calling: best for structured deterministic flows.
Hybrid (recommended): ReAct planning + typed tool execution.

Benchmarking

Track:

completion rate
retries per task
pass@1 and pass@3
cost per successful task

Anti-Patterns

Too many tools with overlapping semantics.
Opaque tool output with no recovery hints.
Error-only output without next steps.
Context overloading with irrelevant references.

Install skill

Copy and run in your terminal

npx -y skills add https://github.com/affaan-m/ecc --skill agent-harness-construction

View on GitHub

agent-harness-construction

security-review
Use this skill when adding authentication, handling user input, working with secrets, creating API endpoints, or implementing payment/sensitive features. Provides comprehensive security checklist and patterns.
17.3K installs
golang-patterns
Idiomatic Go patterns, best practices, and conventions for building robust, efficient, and maintainable Go applications.
14.8K installs
backend-patterns
Backend architecture patterns, API design, database optimization, and server-side best practices for Node.js, Express, and Next.js API routes.
14.2K installs
frontend-patterns
Frontend development patterns for React, Next.js, state management, performance optimization, and UI best practices.
14.1K installs

More skills from affaan-m

affaan-m/ecc

coding-standards

Baseline cross-project coding conventions for naming, readability, immutability, and code-quality review. Use detailed frontend or backend skills for framework-specific patterns.

273.3K 14K

View

affaan-m/ecc

golang-testing

Go testing patterns including table-driven tests, subtests, benchmarks, fuzzing, and test coverage. Follows TDD methodology with idiomatic Go practices.

273.3K 13.1K

View

affaan-m/ecc

docker-patterns

Docker and Docker Compose patterns for local development, container security, networking, volume strategies, and multi-service orchestration.

273.3K 12.7K

View

affaan-m/ecc

springboot-patterns

Spring Boot architecture patterns, REST API design, layered services, data access, caching, async processing, and logging. Use for Java Spring Boot backend work.

273.3K 12.2K

View

affaan-m/ecc

video-editing

AI-assisted video editing workflows for cutting, structuring, and augmenting real footage. Covers the full pipeline from raw capture through FFmpeg, Remotion, ElevenLabs, fal.ai, and final polish in Descript or CapCut. Use when the user wants to edit video, cut footage, create vlogs, or build video content.

273.3K 12.2K

View

affaan-m/ecc

python-patterns

Pythonic idioms, PEP 8 standards, type hints, and best practices for building robust, efficient, and maintainable Python applications.

273.3K 12.1K

View

affaan-m/ecc

frontend-slides

Create stunning, animation-rich HTML presentations from scratch or by converting PowerPoint files. Use when the user wants to build a presentation, convert a PPT/PPTX to web, or create slides for a talk/pitch. Helps non-designers discover their aesthetic through visual exploration rather than abstract choices.

273.3K 12.1K

View

affaan-m/ecc

api-design

REST API design patterns including resource naming, status codes, pagination, filtering, error responses, versioning, and rate limiting for production APIs.

273.3K 11.9K

View

affaan-m/ecc

django-patterns

Django architecture patterns, REST API design with DRF, ORM best practices, caching, signals, middleware, and production-grade Django apps.

273.3K 11.9K

View

affaan-m/ecc

postgres-patterns

PostgreSQL database patterns for query optimization, schema design, indexing, and security. Based on Supabase best practices.

273.3K 11.9K

View

affaan-m/ecc

tdd-workflow

Use this skill when writing new features, fixing bugs, or refactoring code. Enforces test-driven development with 80%+ coverage including unit, integration, and E2E tests.

273.3K 11.6K

View

affaan-m/ecc

prompt-optimizer

Analyze raw prompts, identify intent and gaps, match ECC components (skills/commands/agents/hooks), and output a ready-to-paste optimized prompt. Advisory role only — never executes the task itself. TRIGGER when: user says "optimize prompt", "improve my prompt", "how to write a prompt for", "help me prompt", "rewrite this prompt", or explicitly asks to enhance prompt quality. Also triggers on Chinese equivalents: "优化prompt", "改进prompt", "怎么写prompt", "帮我优化这个指令". DO NOT TRIGGER when: user wants the task executed directly, or says "just do it" / "直接做". DO NOT TRIGGER when user says "优化代码", "优化性能", "optimize performance", "optimize this code" — those are refactoring/performance tasks, not prompt optimization.

273.3K 11.3K

View