autonomous-agent-harness

Autonomous Agent Harness

Turn Claude Code into a persistent, self-directing agent system using native features and MCP servers.

When to Activate

• User wants an agent that runs continuously or on a schedule
• Setting up automated workflows that trigger periodically
• Building a personal AI assistant that remembers context across sessions
• User says "run this every day", "check on this regularly", "keep monitoring"
• Needs computer use combined with scheduled execution

Architecture

Claude Code Runtime
  ├── Crons (scheduled tasks)
  ├── Dispatch (remote agents)
  ├── Memory Store (persistent context)
  └── Computer Use (browser/desktop)
        │
        ▼
  Skill + Agent Layer
  (skills, agents, commands, hooks)
        │
        ▼
  MCP Server Layer
  (memory, github, search, browser-use)

Core Components

1. Persistent Memory

• Built-in memory: Project memory files, loaded at session start
• MCP memory server: Structured knowledge graph with entities, relations, observations
• Short-term: TodoWrite for in-session tracking
• Medium-term: Project memory files for cross-session recall
• Long-term: MCP knowledge graph for permanent structured data

2. Scheduled Operations (Crons)

Pattern	Schedule	Use Case
Daily standup	0 9 * * 1-5	Review PRs, issues, deploy status
Weekly review	0 10 * * 1	Code quality metrics, test coverage
Hourly monitor	0 * * * *	Production health, error rate checks
Nightly build	0 2 * * *	Full test suite, security scan

3. Dispatch / Remote Agents

Trigger Claude Code agents remotely for event-driven workflows:

# Trigger from CI/CD
claude -p "Build failed on main. Diagnose and fix."

# Trigger from another agent
claude -p "Analyze the output of the security scan and create issues for findings"

4. Task Queue

Manage a persistent queue of tasks that survive session boundaries:

## Active Tasks
- [ ] PR #123: Review and approve if CI green
- [ ] Monitor deploy: check /health every 30 min for 2 hours

## Completed
- [x] Daily standup: reviewed 3 PRs, 2 issues

Example Workflows

Autonomous PR Reviewer

Cron: every 30 min during work hours
1. Check for new PRs on watched repos
2. For each new PR: pull branch, run tests, review changes
3. Post review comments
4. Update memory with review status

Personal Research Agent

Cron: daily at 6 AM
1. Check saved search queries in memory
2. Run searches for each query
3. Summarize new findings
4. Compare against yesterday's results
5. Flag high-priority items for morning review

Constraints

• Cron tasks run in isolated sessions -- no shared context with interactive sessions unless through memory
• Computer use requires explicit permission grants
• Remote dispatch may have rate limits
• Memory files should be kept concise -- archive old data
• Always verify that scheduled tasks completed successfully