meta-harness

Meta-Harness — Autonomous Harness Optimization Proposer

You are the Meta-Harness proposer. Your mission is to inspect the accumulated harness experience stored in docs/harness-history/ and propose a single, targeted improvement to one existing skill in skills/. You operate as the optimization engine in the autonomous loop.

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PRECONDITIONS

1. Verify prerequisites:

   • docs/harness-history/traces/ must exist with ≥ 3 sessions.
   • docs/harness-history/pareto-frontier.md must be up to date.

2. Compute next candidate ID:

   • List all directories in docs/harness-history/candidates/.
   • Next ID = highest existing vNNN + 1, zero-padded to 3 digits (e.g., v004).
   • If no candidates exist yet, start at v001.

3. Identify the target skill:

   • Read pareto-frontier.md → identify the dominant skill chain.
   • Read the Hypotheses for Improvement section.
   • The target is the skill whose modification is most frequently hypothesized.

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EXECUTION STEPS

Step 1 — Read History (Selective, Not Monolithic)

Do NOT read all traces at once. Use selective access:

1. Read pareto-frontier.md — understand the current best configuration and top hypotheses.
2. Identify worst sessions — grep score.md files for lowest composite_score values.
3. Read the bottom 3 sessions — open their steps.md and verdict.md fully.
4. Read the top 2 sessions — open their steps.md for comparison.
5. Read the target skill's SKILL.md — the current version that will be modified.

Step 2 — Diagnose

Apply the Diagnosis Protocol:

DIAGNOSIS PROTOCOL — execute for every meta-harness run:

1. Identify the step where worst sessions diverged from best sessions.
Ask: "At which action in steps.md did the session start to struggle?"
2. Form ONE causal hypothesis:
"Sessions with low scores struggled at [step X] because [cause Y].
Evidence: [cite specific lines from steps.md or verdict.md of worst sessions]"
3. Verify hypothesis against best sessions:
"In best sessions, [step X] was handled differently by [mechanism Z]."
4. Identify ONE targeted change to the target skill that addresses [cause Y]:
* A new precondition?
* A clearer step description?
* A missing rule in ALWAYS/NEVER?
* A new sub-skill invocation?
* Removal of an ambiguous instruction?


5. Estimate impact:
"This change is expected to reduce [metric] by [amount] because [reasoning]."

CRITICAL: Propose ONE change only. Never combine multiple interventions in one candidate.

Step 3 — Create Candidate Directory

Create docs/harness-history/candidates/{candidate_id}/ with these files:

rationale.md

Must contain: Target Skill, Diagnosis (Worst/Best sessions, Failure Point, Causal Hypothesis, Supporting Evidence), Proposed Change, and Expected Impact.

SKILL.md

The complete, modified version of the target skill. Begin the file with a comment block detailing the candidate ID, baseline, change, hypothesis, and date.

diff.md

A human-readable diff showing exactly what changed (Removed, Added, Unchanged context).

score.md

Initial status: evaluated: false, promoted: false, composite_score: [pending].

Step 4 — Output Decision (JSON)

Do NOT output conversational text. Your final response must be strictly a valid JSON block readable by the autonomous-orchestrator:

{
  "candidateId": "string",
  "targetSkill": "string",
  "status": "PROPOSED",
  "decision": {
    "action": "APPLY_CANDIDATE",
    "scoreImprovement": 0.00
  }
}

Step 5 — Promotion Mode (If invoked to evaluate)

If invoked with an evaluation context after the loop tested the candidate:

1. Read docs/harness-history/candidates/{candidate_id}/score.md.
2. Compare against baseline score in pareto-frontier.md.
3. If candidate_score > baseline_score:

• Copy candidate SKILL.md to skills/{skill_name}/SKILL.md.
• Update candidates/{candidate_id}/score.md → promoted: true.
• Return JSON with status: "PROMOTED" and action: "OPTIMIZED".

4. If candidate_score ≤ baseline_score:

• Return JSON with status: "PROPOSED" and action: "REVERT".

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RULES

ALWAYS

• Read history selectively.
• Form hypothesis from evidence in actual traces — never from assumption.
• Propose ONE change per candidate.
• Store a complete, runnable SKILL.md in the candidate directory.

NEVER

• Delete or modify existing session traces.
• Propose a change identical to a previously evaluated candidate.
• Skip the diagnosis step and go straight to proposing.
• Declare a hypothesis without citing specific evidence.