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Agent skill

Harness Book Best Practice

by wquguru in wquguru/harness-books

Best practices for working on the Harness books repo. An agent skill from wquguru/harness-books.

No licenceAuto-check passedDocuments & Office

Install Harness Book Best Practice

skills CLI
$ npx skills add wquguru/harness-books --skill harness-book-best-practice -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install wquguru/harness-books harness-book-best-practice --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wquguru/harness-books.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/.codex/skills/harness-book-best-practice .claude/skills/harness-book-best-practice && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
harness-book-best-practice
GitHub stars
3.2k
Token cost
~4.1k tokens
SKILL.md length
2,058 words
Files
3 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
1
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
None found

At a glance

Best practices for working on the Harness books repo. An agent skill from wquguru/harness-books.

  • Works in 4 steps: Regenerate with --clean-generated so the… → Eyeball the rendered .png: does it fit… → Rebuild the affected book PDF and… → …
  • Exporting the books under book1-claude-code/ and book2-comparing/
  • SKILL.md covers Scope, Release Metadata, Directory Rules and Diagrams (PUML), plus 12 more sections
  • Calls python3 and pdftotext

What it does

Harness Book Best Practice is an agent skill from wquguru/harness-books. Best practices for working on the Harness books repo. Use this skill when editing, restructuring, building, or exporting the books under book1-claude-code/ and book2-comparing/, especially for Honkit, print HTML, Pandoc/XeLaTeX PDF export, build cleanup, TOC issues, naming conventions, and keeping source assets separate from generated outputs.

Its SKILL.md is about 4.1k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 3 other files, including reference files (for example `references/comparative-book-proposal.md` and `references/harness-engineering-book-proposal.md`).

It sits in Documents & Office, covering PDF and Diagrams. It works with Pandoc and LaTeX. The repository describes itself as: 📚 Two books on harness engineering — the design philosophies behind Claude Code & Codex: constraints, query loops, context governance, multi-agent verification….

When your agent uses it

  • Exporting the books under book1-claude-code/ and book2-comparing/
  • Especially for Honkit
  • Pandoc/XeLaTeX PDF export
  • Naming conventions

Example prompts

  • “/harness-book-best-practice”

Requirements

  • Python 3

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Regenerate with --clean-generated so the embedded .png matches the source.
  2. Eyeball the rendered .png: does it fit roughly 700-1500 px on each axis, and does the contrast read at book width?
  3. Rebuild the affected book PDF and confirm the diagram is not clipped at the page boundary.
  4. For book2 comparison diagrams, also confirm the two composite states stack vertically and the [hidden] separator is keeping them apart.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit fbf2b43. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • python3
    • pdftotext

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Harness Book Best Practice loads about 4.1k tokens when it runs, and up to ~7.9k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 94 tokens; SKILL.md has 2,058 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~94
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~4.1k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~7.9k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

Without a licence we can't republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 2,058 words (~4,078 tokens).

“Use this skill for changes inside this repository's book system.”

— opening of SKILL.md by wquguru
name
harness-book-best-practice

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

SKILL.md and 2 other files (references) in .codex/skills/harness-book-best-practice of wquguru/harness-books.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/comparative-book-proposal.md
  • references/harness-engineering-book-proposal.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit fbf2b43

Compare with similar skills

Harness Book Best Practice next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Harness Book Best Practice compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Harness Book Best Practice this skillwquguru/harness-books3.2k—~4.1kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Pandic OfficeTeam-Commonly/commonly1.4k—~642Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Render PDF DocAperivue/medsci-skills333—~2.1kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Document Gen ResilientHKUDS/OpenSpace7.8k—~3.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Document Gen Resilient MultiformatHKUDS/OpenSpace7.8k—~3.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Document Gen Unicode SafeHKUDS/OpenSpace7.8k—~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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    A skill your agent uses when rendering a Markdown document (English or Korean) such as a proposal, IRB cover letter, handout or reference table to PDF via pandoc and xelatex, with auto-fitted table…

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Harness Book Best Practice

What does Harness Book Best Practice do?

Best practices for working on the Harness books repo. An agent skill from wquguru/harness-books. Harness Book Best Practice is an agent skill from wquguru/harness-books. Best practices for working on the Harness books repo.

When should I use Harness Book Best Practice?

Harness Book Best Practice fits situations like: exporting the books under book1-claude-code/ and book2-comparing/; especially for Honkit; pandoc/XeLaTeX PDF export; naming conventions.

How do I install Harness Book Best Practice in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add wquguru/harness-books --skill harness-book-best-practice -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (.codex/skills/harness-book-best-practice in wquguru/harness-books) into .claude/skills/harness-book-best-practice in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Harness Book Best Practice in Codex?

Run `npx skills add wquguru/harness-books --skill harness-book-best-practice -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (.codex/skills/harness-book-best-practice in wquguru/harness-books) into .agents/skills/harness-book-best-practice in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Harness Book Best Practice in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add wquguru/harness-books --skill harness-book-best-practice -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/harness-book-best-practice, .gemini/skills/harness-book-best-practice, .github/skills/harness-book-best-practice and .opencode/skills/harness-book-best-practice in your project.

What does Harness Book Best Practice need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Harness Book Best Practice needs the command-line tools its instructions call (python3 and pdftotext). Our summary lists: Python 3.

Does Harness Book Best Practice access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Harness Book Best Practice safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Harness Book Best Practice use?

No licence was found for Harness Book Best Practice or its repository. Without one, default copyright applies: ask the author before reusing or redistributing it.

How many tokens does Harness Book Best Practice use?

About 4.1k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 16k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 3.8k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Harness Book Best Practice?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Harness Book Best Practice: Pandic Office (Team-Commonly/commonly, 1.4k stars), Render PDF Doc (Aperivue/medsci-skills, 333 stars), Document Gen Resilient (HKUDS/OpenSpace, 7.8k stars) and Document Gen Resilient Multiformat (HKUDS/OpenSpace, 7.8k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Harness Book Best Practice?

wquguru (a GitHub user) maintains it in wquguru/harness-books, which has 3,177 GitHub stars. The repository was last updated on April 19, 2026.

Source: wquguru/harness-books on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.