Keep your instructions, subagents, commands, and MCP servers in a single iso/ directory. iso-harness build transpiles that source to the file layout each harness actually reads.

iso/                              →  CLAUDE.md                    (Claude Code)
├── instructions.md                  .claude/agents/*.md
├── instructions.agents.md*          .claude/commands/*.md
├── instructions.claude.md*          .mcp.json
├── instructions.cursor.md*       →  AGENTS.md                    (Codex + OpenCode + Pi)
├── instructions.opencode.md*        .codex/config.toml
├── mcp.json                         .opencode/agents/*.md
│                                     .opencode/skills/*.md
│                                     .opencode/instructions.md*  (OpenCode-only addendum)
│                                     .opencode/opencode-model-fallback.json  (optional; from `opencodeModelFallback` in iso/config.json)
│                                     opencode.json
│                                  →  .cursor/rules/*.mdc          (Cursor)
│                                     .cursor/mcp.json
│                                  →  .pi/skills/*/SKILL.md        (Pi)
│                                     .pi/prompts/*.md
├── agents/                          .mcp.json
│   └── researcher.md
└── commands/
    └── review.md

Files marked with * are optional.

Quickstart

npm install
node bin/iso-harness.mjs build --source examples/minimal/iso --out /tmp/iso-demo

Or once installed as a CLI:

iso-harness build                         # reads ./iso, writes to ./
iso-harness build --target claude,cursor  # only two targets
iso-harness build --source path/to/iso --out path/to/project
iso-harness build --dry-run               # print planned writes, no disk changes
iso-harness build --watch                 # rebuild on every change under iso/

Build modes

--dry-run validates and renders the full output plan, but prints what would be written instead of touching disk.
--watch keeps a filesystem watcher on the source directory and reruns the build after changes. Combine it with --target when you only care about one harness while iterating.

Source format

iso/
├── instructions.md       # root prompt → CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / .cursor/rules/main.mdc
├── instructions.agents.md   # optional addendum for shared AGENTS.md targets
├── instructions.claude.md   # optional Claude-only root addendum
├── instructions.cursor.md   # optional Cursor-only root addendum
├── instructions.opencode.md # optional OpenCode-only addendum, loaded via opencode.json.instructions
├── config.json           # optional — targets.* merges + opencodeModelFallback file emit
├── mcp.json              # shared MCP server definitions
├── agents/               # subagents
│   └── <slug>.md         # YAML frontmatter + body
└── commands/             # slash commands / skills
    └── <slug>.md         # YAML frontmatter + body

`mcp.json`

A harness-neutral schema. Each server has command, optional args, optional env. The emitter translates to the shape each harness expects (e.g. OpenCode wants type: "local" and command as an array).

{
  "servers": {
    "example": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@example/mcp"],
      "env": { "EXAMPLE_MODE": "demo" }
    }
  }
}

By design, mcp.json has no per-harness override mechanism. The same MCP server should behave the same way no matter which harness launches it — if it doesn't, that's an MCP/config issue to fix at the server level, not something the shared config should paper over.

Agent frontmatter

---
name: researcher
description: Researches technical topics.
model: sonnet
tools: [Read, Grep, WebFetch]
targets:
  cursor: skip                  # don't emit for Cursor
  codex: skip
  opencode:                     # per-target overrides pass through verbatim
    temperature: 0.2
    fallback_models: [foo, bar]
---

Agent prompt body goes here.

Command frontmatter

---
name: review
description: Review the current git diff.
args: "[scope]"                 # argument hint
targets:
  cursor: skip
---

Slash-command body goes here.

Targets

Harness	Instructions	Agents	Commands	MCP
Claude Code	`CLAUDE.md`	`.claude/agents/*.md`	`.claude/commands/*.md`	`.mcp.json`
Cursor	`.cursor/rules/main.mdc`	`.cursor/rules/agent-*.mdc`	(no native form)	`.cursor/mcp.json`
Codex	`AGENTS.md`	(no native form)	(no native form)	`.codex/config.toml`
OpenCode	`AGENTS.md`	`.opencode/agents/*.md`	`.opencode/skills/*.md`	`opencode.json`
Pi	`AGENTS.md`	`.pi/skills/*/SKILL.md`	`.pi/prompts/*.md`	(extension/package only)

Successful builds record owned outputs in .iso-harness/manifest.json. Subsequent builds remove unchanged outputs that are no longer present in the source and reconcile owned MCP/config sections while preserving unrelated user settings. Modified stale files are preserved with a warning, and an existing unowned generated-file path is refused instead of overwritten.

Escape hatches

The abstraction is only as good as its lowest common denominator. Four explicit hatches keep harness-specific features possible:

Per-target frontmatter under targets: (agents & commands). Harness-specific fields under targets.<name> are mapped or passed through where that target supports them. Use this for OpenCode temperature / fallback_models, Claude Code allowed-tools, Pi skill metadata, etc.
targets.<name>: skip omits the item from a specific target — useful when a subagent only makes sense in harnesses that support subagents.
iso/config.json with targets.<name>: { … } for top-level harness config (not per-item). Keys under targets.opencode are merged into the generated opencode.json — use this for OpenCode's top-level instructions: [...] array, for example. Keys under targets.pi are merged into .pi/settings.json.
iso/config.json top-level opencodeModelFallback — JSON object written verbatim to .opencode/opencode-model-fallback.json for the @agent-pattern-labs/opencode-model-fallback plugin (retryable_error_patterns, global fallback_models, etc.). OpenCode-only; other harnesses ignore it.

Root instruction addenda

instructions.md is still the shared base prompt. Optional sibling files let you add harness-specific root guidance without forking the whole source:

instructions.agents.md appends only to the shared AGENTS.md output used by Codex, OpenCode, and Pi.
instructions.claude.md appends only to CLAUDE.md.
instructions.cursor.md appends only to .cursor/rules/main.mdc.
instructions.opencode.md is emitted to .opencode/instructions.md and automatically added to opencode.json.instructions.

This is especially useful when OpenCode needs extra orchestration guidance that should not leak into the shared AGENTS.md file that Codex and Pi also read.

// iso/config.json
{
  "targets": {
    "opencode": {
      "instructions": ["templates/states.yml"]
    },
    "pi": {
      "prompts": ["prompts"],
      "enableSkillCommands": true
    }
  },
  "opencodeModelFallback": {
    "cooldown_seconds": 60,
    "retryable_error_patterns": ["(?i)venice.*insufficient"],
    "fallback_models": ["openrouter/openai/gpt-oss-120b:free"]
  }
}

Per-agent OpenCode fallback_models still belong in agent frontmatter under targets.opencode. Use opencodeModelFallback only for the global plugin file OpenCode loads from .opencode/.

Composition with `@agent-pattern-labs/iso-route`

When @agent-pattern-labs/iso-route writes its resolved role map to <out>/.claude/iso-route.resolved.json (normally by running iso-route build into the same output directory before iso-harness build), iso-harness picks it up automatically and stamps model: onto each Claude subagent frontmatter.

Resolution order per subagent, highest to lowest:

Per-target targets.claude.model from the agent's frontmatter.
Inline model: from the agent's frontmatter.
roles[agent.role ?? agent.slug].model from the resolved map.
Nothing — the emitted frontmatter has no model: field.

So an author can (a) hard-pin a model in the source file, (b) let iso-route drive it from policy, or (c) leave it to Claude Code's session default — without editing the agent body.

Non-Anthropic roles in the resolved map are skipped (Claude Code subagents can only run Anthropic models) and logged on stderr. Missing roles are silent — not every agent needs a role entry.

For Pi, iso-route owns .pi/settings.json model defaults. If iso/config.json also contains targets.pi, iso-harness merges those project settings into the existing file instead of replacing model settings.

The contract is file-based on purpose: iso-harness and iso-route publish and version independently, so an on-disk JSON file is more robust than a TypeScript import across the two.

Releasing

Releases are cut via a GitHub Release, which triggers .github/workflows/release.yml to publish @agent-pattern-labs/iso-harness to npm with provenance.

Prerequisites (one-time):

Repo secret NPM_TOKEN — an npm automation token with publish rights on the @agent-pattern-labs scope. Set at https://github.com/Agent-Pattern-Labs/iso-harness/settings/secrets/actions.
Npm scope @agent-pattern-labs must exist and the token must have access.

Cutting a release:

# 1. Bump version, commit, push. CI (Quality checks) must pass on the
#    pushed commit — the release workflow refuses to publish otherwise.
npm version patch                     # or minor/major — bumps package.json + tags
git push && git push --tags

# 2. Create the GitHub Release off the tag. This fires release.yml.
gh release create "v$(node -p 'require(\"./package.json\").version')" \
  --generate-notes

The release workflow will:

Wait for the Quality checks run on the release commit to complete (up to 30 min). Refuses to publish on red.
Verify package.json version matches the tag via scripts/release/check-source.mjs.
npm publish --provenance --access public.

If the publish step fails (e.g. token, 2FA, name conflict), fix the cause, delete the GitHub release + tag, and re-cut — do not amend.