callva-harness-runner

One run of an agent harness, as a Python library. A harness is the vendor's agent runtime: Claude Code, driven through Anthropic's claude-agent-sdk, or the Codex CLI, driven through OpenAI's openai-codex, always the CLI installed on the machine. A profile is one harness configuration, a flat set of explicit knobs. A run is one turn: a prompt goes in, the harness works to its end or its deadline, and one Result comes out, with the failure named. The deadline kills everything the harness started. What a run may do is whatever its profile says, and nothing else; the library never decides it. It ships three profiles, read, act and read-sandboxed, that a caller loads by name, and a caller's own profile files of the same name come first.

DESIGN.md is the contract. The source is at https://github.com/callva-io/harness-runner.

Formerly callva-agentworker, whose last release is 0.2.0. The 0.3.0 renames, with no aliases (each old name is refused with a message naming the new one):

Install

pip install callva-harness-runner

It depends on claude-agent-sdk==0.2.161 and openai-codex==0.159.0, pinned exactly; together they add about 0.5 GB, most of it the CLIs both SDKs bundle. The bundled CLIs are never run: the library always runs the CLI installed on the machine.

In a PEP 723 script, pin the exact version so nothing outside the script's own release changes what it runs:

# /// script
# dependencies = ["callva-harness-runner==0.4.0"]
# ///

Use

from callva.harness_runner import Profile, Session, run

profile = Profile.from_dict(config["profile"])   # your configuration, your knobs
result = run("Summarise README.md in one line.", profile, cwd="/path/to/project")
if result.ok:
    print(result.answer, result.cost_usd, result.session_id)
else:
    print(result.failure.kind, result.failure.message)

run() never raises for anything the harness did. Every ending is a Result; result.failure.kind says what kind, and result.failure.message carries the harness's own sentence. It raises ValueError only for a request it cannot express, such as a pinned session on codex.

run(prompt, profile, cwd, *, session=None, environ=None, extra_env=None, on_event=None, cancel=None, stderr_tail=40):

• session: Session.fresh() (the default), Session.pinned(id) or Session.resume(id), below.
• environ: the environment the harness starts from; this process's by default. A variable absent from it is absent in the harness, even though both SDKs inherit this process's environment.
• extra_env: variables set on top of environ and the profile's env_set.
• on_event: called with one dict per harness event while the turn runs. On claude it is the SDK's message: a system message is the harness's own event (subtype init carries apiKeySource, model and claude_code_version), any other message is its fields plus type, the SDK class name. On codex it is {"method", "params"}, one app-server notification.
• cancel: a threading.Event; setting it ends the turn and kills its processes.

Profile

A profile is a flat set of explicit knobs. There is no inheritance and no fence. A knob left at its default leaves the harness's own default in place. A knob one harness cannot honour is refused for that harness with a ProfileError when the profile is built, never ignored while it runs. Each knob's docstring on Profile says what it does on each harness; PROFILE_SCHEMA (shipped as profile.schema.json) validates a profile kept in configuration, and Profile.from_dict refuses unknown keys.

Claude always runs on the claude_code system-prompt preset, so a turn has the same prompt claude -p has; the library never replaces either harness's system prompt, and append_system_prompt only adds to it.

Profiles by name

A profile file is TOML with one table per harness, [claude] and [codex], each holding that harness's knobs. The table name is the harness: a harness key inside it may be left out, and when present it must match, or the file is refused. Nothing else may sit at the top of the file.

from callva.harness_runner import find_profile, run
import dataclasses

profile = find_profile("read-sandboxed", "codex", ["capabilities/myapp/profiles"])
profile = dataclasses.replace(profile, model="gpt-5.6-luna")   # change a knob for one run
result = run("What does this project do?", profile, cwd="/path/to/project")

A name resolves to the first NAME.toml found in, in order:

1. the folders the caller passes, in the order given;
2. the machine folder, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/callva-harness-runner/profiles, or ~/.config/callva-harness-runner/profiles when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset;
3. the profiles shipped inside the package.

The file found is used whole: no merging and no inheritance. A found file without a table for the requested harness is an error naming the file and the harness, and the search does not go on to a later source. A name is one file-name segment of letters, digits, ., - and _, not starting with .; anything else is refused.

• find_profile(name, harness, folders=(), *, environ=None) -> Profile
• find_profile_file(name, folders=(), *, environ=None) -> ProfileFile: the file itself (name, source, path, text, shadows), with .harnesses() and .profile(harness).
• list_profiles(folders=(), *, environ=None) -> list[ProfileListing]: every visible profile with its name, source (folder, machine or shipped), path, harnesses, the same-named files it shadows, and an error when the file cannot be read as a profile file.
• machine_folder(environ=None) -> Path

ProfileNotFound, a ProfileError, means no source has the name.

From a shell, python -m callva.harness_runner profiles prints the listing as JSON, and python -m callva.harness_runner profiles show NAME prints the file a lookup resolves to, after a comment line naming its source and path. Both take --folder DIR, once per folder, in search order.

Shipped profiles

All three run claude-opus-5-5 and gpt-6-sol at effort medium with a one-hour deadline. Print one with profiles show NAME.

• read: a research question held to reading by instruction alone. Every tool and a full shell (claude bypassPermissions, codex danger-full-access), the target's project and local settings on claude, a read-only instruction appended to the system prompt, and CAPABILITIES_READ_ONLY=1.
• act: a task with full access (claude bypassPermissions, codex danger-full-access, approvals never).
• read-sandboxed: the same read, enforced by the operating system. The run's working directory cannot be written; the network, ~/.cache and the temporary directory stay writable. On claude, Claude Code's seatbelt sandbox with ask: ["Bash"], the write tools disallowed, no MCP servers, disableAllHooks, and the permission rule Edit(./**), which Claude Code resolves against the working directory and merges into the sandbox's write denials; a denyWrite path would resolve against the settings root instead, not the run's directory. On codex, a named permissions profile extending :read-only with ~/.cache and :tmpdir writable and the network on. The same read-only instruction and CAPABILITIES_READ_ONLY=1. On claude, read-sandboxed does not run the target's hooks, because a hook runs outside the sandbox and could write the target: context a hook would build, such as a ContextKit SessionStart build, is read as it already is on disk. CLAUDE.md and the project's rules still load. The plain read profile does run the target's hooks.

Environment

Both SDKs only add to the environment they inherit. To remove a variable for real, the library puts a small launcher of its own in front of the CLI: the SDK starts the launcher, the launcher removes what the profile removes and becomes the CLI. The launcher learns names, never values. SESSION_MARKERS are the variables a running Claude Code session leaves in its children (CLAUDECODE, CLAUDE_CODE_SESSION_ID, CLAUDE_EFFORT, AI_AGENT and the rest); a child harness that inherits them believes it runs inside that session, so they are removed unless strip_session_markers is false. On claude the values the SDK itself sets for the CLI, such as its entrypoint, stay.

Deadline and cancel

The launcher makes the harness a session leader. When the deadline passes, or cancel is set, no further harness start is allowed, and the harness, every process it started, and everything those left behind in their process group or session are sent SIGTERM and then SIGKILL, grandchildren included. A caller that is itself killed cannot do this, and the harness's tree then outlives it.

Harness guard

TESTED_VERSIONS holds, per harness, the range of CLI versions this release was tested with: claude 2.1.280 to 2.1.284, codex 0.159.0. Before a turn the library reads the installed CLI's --version:

• older than the range: the turn is refused with failure kind incompatible_harness, and the message names the installed version and the tested one;
• newer than the range: the turn runs, and result.warnings names both versions;
• no CLI: binary_missing, as before.

Session

Session.fresh() starts a conversation; on claude the id is chosen before launch so a killed turn is still addressable, on codex it is the thread id the app-server gives. Session.resume(id) continues one on either harness. Session.pinned(id) chooses the id and is claude-only.

Result

Failure kinds

quota, model_refused, not_authenticated, timeout, cancelled, binary_missing, max_turns, budget, invalid_output, error, crash, incompatible_harness. The harness's own verdict is read first (claude's result subtype, codex's codexErrorInfo), then an HTTP status it reports, then its sentence: a spent quota before a refused model, because a subscription spent on one model says both and only one of them is a pause. A claude turn that times out while the harness is retrying a 401 or a 429 is not_authenticated or quota. failure.retryable is true for the kinds where running the same turn again later can succeed.

Changelog

0.4.0

Profiles by name: profile files (one table per harness), find_profile, find_profile_file, list_profiles, machine_folder, the profiles command, and three shipped profiles, read, act and read-sandboxed. Additive: everything in 0.3.0 works unchanged.

0.3.0

The library is renamed and speaks of harnesses, profiles and runs; its behaviour is exactly 0.2.0's. What a 0.2.0 consumer must change: depend on callva-harness-runner and import callva.harness_runner; write harness where a profile said engine; read Result.harness and Result.harness_version; branch on incompatible_harness; import HARNESSES. The table at the top maps every old name.

0.2.0

The engines now run through the vendors' SDKs, and the profile is explicit knobs. What a 0.1.x consumer must change:

• fence is gone, and so is its default. A 0.1.x profile that named no fence ran fenced to read; the same profile now runs with the engine's own defaults. State what the turn may do with tools, allowed_tools, disallowed_tools, permission_mode, setting_sources, settings, mcp_config and strict_mcp on claude, and codex_config and approval_policy on codex. Profile.from_dict refuses a fence key with a message naming these knobs, and Profile.fence no longer exists.
• allow_tools becomes tools plus allowed_tools. env (allow, deny, set) becomes env_set, env_remove and strip_session_markers; there is no allow-list. extra_args becomes claude_extra_args (a mapping) or codex_extra_args. EnvPolicy, DEFAULT_DENY and FENCES are no longer exported.
• run() loses schema (now the profile's output_schema), name (now the profile's name) and prompt_via (the prompt always travels over the SDK's own channel).
• A knob the engine cannot honour is refused instead of ignored: budget_usd on codex, service_tier on claude.
• on_event receives SDK messages (claude) and app-server notifications (codex) instead of CLI JSON lines. raw changes shape the same way, command is the command line the launcher started, and exit_code is None unless the claude SDK reported one.
• A CLI older than the tested range is refused with the new kind incompatible_engine; Result gains engine_version and warnings.
• Two dependencies arrive, about 0.5 GB.

Unchanged: Profile.from_dict, Session.fresh, Session.pinned, Session.resume, run(prompt, profile, cwd, session=, environ=, extra_env=, on_event=, cancel=), FailureKind, and every 0.1.x Result field.

Versioning

The major stays 0. A breaking change or a new feature bumps the minor; a fix bumps the patch. A changed shipped profile is a change to what a run does, so it is at least a minor.

License

Apache-2.0.