dkod Harness — Autonomous Parallel Build System

What This Is

A fully autonomous build harness. The user provides a single prompt ("build a webapp that..."). The harness does everything else — planning, parallel implementation, testing, fixing, and shipping — without any further user interaction.

This is an implementation of Anthropic's Planner → Generator → Evaluator harness pattern, purpose-built for dkod's parallel execution capabilities. Where Anthropic's reference architecture runs generators sequentially, this harness runs N generators simultaneously because dkod's AST-level merge eliminates false conflicts.

When This Skill Activates

• User says "build a...", "create a...", "make a..."
• User invokes /dkh <prompt>
• User describes a complete application or feature set to build from scratch
• Any task complex enough to benefit from parallel decomposition + evaluation

Source of Truth — READ THIS FIRST

This file (SKILL.md) defines activation and configuration only:

• When the harness activates
• Prerequisites the host environment must provide
• Model profiles the user can switch between
• Pointers to the agent files

agents/orchestrator.md is authoritative for runtime behavior — the phase-gated loop, state tracking, gate enforcement, PRE-FLIGHT, /dkh continue recovery, HALT manifest, round/REPLAN transitions, error recovery. When a rule or procedure is described in both files, the orchestrator's version wins.

Each agent has its own authoritative file for its work:

• agents/planner.md — work unit decomposition, File Manifest, Shared Contracts, Gate 1 self-check
• agents/generator.md — write → submit → review-fix → approve → merge pipeline, symbol locking
• agents/evaluator.md — skeptical scoring methodology

If you find text in SKILL.md that overlaps with an agent file, trust the agent file and open a cleanup PR.

Handling /dkh continue

When the user sends /dkh continue (or just "continue"), the orchestrator recovers state from any interrupted session — preserving submitted and approved changesets, closing only incomplete ones (draft, conflicted, rejected) — and resumes from the correct phase.

Full recovery protocol: see the "Resume from Interruption" section in agents/orchestrator.md. Never ignore a /dkh continue silently — always acknowledge with current status.

Prerequisites Check

Before starting, verify these are available:

1. dkod MCP tools: dkconnect, dkcontext, dkfilewrite, dksubmit, dkverify,

dkreview, dkapprove, dkmerge, dkpush, dkstatus, dkwatch

1. Browser testing (pick one — Playwright preferred):

- playwright-cli (preferred): Check with playwright-cli --version. Standalone CLI for skills-less browser automation — screenshots, script execution, PDF generation. No Node.js scripts needed, no MCP server, runs headless by default. See: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-cli - chrome-devtools MCP (fallback): navigatepage, takescreenshot, click, evaluatescript, listconsolemessages, lighthouseaudit. Used only if Playwright is not installed. - If not found, output install instructions and proceed with fallback. Do NOT ask the user or install. - If NEITHER Playwright nor chrome-devtools is available, evaluation falls to dk_verify + code review (no live UI testing).

1. Design system (pick one — DESIGN.md preferred):

- DESIGN.md (preferred): A design system file in the project root, sourced from awesome-design-md. If present, it becomes the authoritative design reference — the planner incorporates it into the spec, generators follow it directly (no skill invocation needed), and the evaluator scores against it. This produces more distinctive, brand-aligned UI than the generic skill. - frontend-design skill (fallback): If no DESIGN.md exists, generators invoke Skill(skill: "frontend-design") before implementing UI components. The planner still generates a Design Direction section in the spec. The evaluator still scores design quality. If not found, output install instructions and proceed with fallback. Do NOT ask the user or install. - If NEITHER is available, generators follow the planner's Design Direction section manually.

Detection flow (run once during PRE-FLIGHT):

# 1. Detect playwright-cli (standalone CLI, skills-less operation)
HAS_PLAYWRIGHT=false
playwright-cli --version 2>/dev/null && HAS_PLAYWRIGHT=true

# 2. Detect DESIGN.md (check all paths the planner searches)
HAS_DESIGN_MD=false
( [ -f DESIGN.md ] || [ -f design.md ] || [ -f docs/DESIGN.md ] || [ -f docs/design.md ] ) && HAS_DESIGN_MD=true

If dkod is missing, guide installation:

claude mcp add --transport http dkod https://api.dkod.io/mcp

Model Profiles

Active profile: quality

Each agent runs on a model appropriate to its task. The orchestrator reads the active profile and passes model: AND effort: on every Agent dispatch call.

\* The orchestrator model is set by the invoking Claude Code session, not by this table. This row is a recommendation for the session model, not enforced by the harness.

Effort levels are mandatory. All agents default to high effort. Opus at high is already performing extended reasoning, which is sufficient for the planner's decomposition and the evaluator's scoring. max engages an even larger thinking budget and typically adds significant latency for marginal quality gain; the harness no longer defaults to it. Always pass effort: when dispatching agents — an omitted effort: makes the agent inherit the orchestrator's value, which wastes tokens.

• quality — All Opus. Maximum capability. Use for complex or high-stakes builds.
• balanced (default) — Opus for planning and orchestration, Sonnet for implementation

and evaluation. Best cost/quality trade-off.

• budget — Sonnet for planning and implementation, Haiku for evaluation. Fastest and

cheapest. Use for simple builds or iteration.

To switch profiles, change Active profile: above. The orchestrator reads this value at the start of each run.

Agent Definitions

• Planner: agents/planner.md — expands prompt into spec + parallel work units (authoritative for decomposition, File Manifest, Shared Contracts)
• Generator: agents/generator.md — implements a single work unit via dkod session (authoritative for write → submit → review-fix → approve → merge pipeline, symbol locking)
• Evaluator: agents/evaluator.md — tests merged result via chrome-devtools + dk_verify (authoritative for skeptical scoring)
• Orchestrator: agents/orchestrator.md — drives the autonomous loop (authoritative for phase gates, state tracking, resume, HALT, round/REPLAN transitions)

Reference Guides

• references/planning-guide.md — deep guide for symbol-level decomposition
• references/evaluation-guide.md — skeptical evaluation techniques and chrome-devtools patterns
• references/dkod-patterns.md — dkod session lifecycle and merge patterns