prusik 0.197.5

Iron-clad autonomous harness for Claude Code agent teams — phase gates, scoping, triage, evidence, binding-mismatch detection, and closed-loop verification.

Prusik

Proof, not opinion. Prusik verifies that your agent's work actually happened — from the tool's own output, never the agent's word. Start with one zero-ceremony command; scale to a full autonomous harness for Claude Code agent teams when you're ready.

Prove your agent's tests actually ran (30 seconds, zero config)

No init, no config, no buy-in — install and prove:

pip install prusik

prusik prove -- pytest -q
prusik prove --kind types -- mypy src/
prusik prove --min 20 --json -- pytest tests/

Prusik wraps any test/lint/type command and proves it really ran clean — from the tool's own output, not the agent's word. The exit code reflects the truth: 0 only when the command exited 0 and real work was observed.

The case it exists to catch — exit 0 but zero tests executed ("tests pass ✅" when nothing actually ran: auto-skip, no collection, wrong path) — fails with rc=1. Drop it into CI or a pre-push hook as a one-line anti-fabrication check. That's the whole pitch; everything below is opt-in from here.

Why this exists

Claude Code can coordinate agent teams, but agents fabricate: they report "tests pass ✅" when nothing ran, burn tokens on malformed work, lose context across sessions, and freelance outside their scope. Prusik converts discipline into enforcement — hooks block out-of-phase writes, schemas reject shallow artifacts, triage routes solo-vs-team deterministically, a watchdog catches stuck teammates, and a ledger records every transition for audit and self-tuning. Every check grounds in deterministic evidence, not an LLM's opinion of its own work. prove is the wedge; the full harness is the same principle applied end-to-end.

The full harness (opt-in from here)

Beyond prove, prusik scaffolds into a project as a phase-gated harness for Claude Code agent teams: writable-path enforcement, schema-validated artifacts, deterministic triage, a watchdog, and a ledger that closes the feedback loop. prusik init sets it up; nothing below is required to use prove.

Adopt / pause / remove

cd your-project
prusik init                                                    # scaffold .claude/, briefs/, design/, .sprint/
prusik init --conventions ~/workspace/python/best-practices    # ... with a convention pack

prusik status                                                  # show current state / active sprint
prusik disable                                                 # pause hooks without removing files (reversible)
prusik enable                                                  # resume

prusik uninstall                                               # remove only what prusik installed (preserves user edits)
prusik uninstall --force                                       # also remove files you modified
prusik uninstall --keep-artifacts                              # keep .sprint/ (ledger, inventory, dep-graph)

prusik init writes .claude/.prusik-manifest.json tracking every file it creates with a content hash. prusik uninstall uses that manifest to remove only prusik-written files — any custom agents, commands, or config tweaks you added stay put. The .gitignore block prusik adds is wrapped in markers so it can be cleanly unwound too.

Your project now has:

• .claude/settings.json — PreToolUse/Stop/SessionStart hooks wired to prusik gate
• .claude/sprint-config.yaml — phase FSM + triage heuristics + pre-sprint gates + issues + watchdog settings
• .claude/agents/*.md — role library (cartographer, scoping, planner, builders, reviewers, integrator, brief-critic)
• .claude/commands/*.md — slash commands (/brief-new, /sprint-start, /sprint-advance, /sprint-status, /sprint-complete, /sprint-watchdog, /issues-sync, /brief-form)
• .claude/schemas/*.yaml — brief + scope schemas
• briefs/, design/, reports/, decisions/, worktrees/, .sprint/

The flow (one feature, end-to-end)

/brief-new email-receipts                              # 5-field wizard; writes briefs/email-receipts.md
prusik discovery all                                       # (first time or stale) inventory + dep graph
/sprint-start email-receipts                            # brief-critic runs; brief validated; scoping begins
<scoping role writes design/email-receipts/scope.md>
/sprint-advance triage --feature email-receipts         # pure-code solo vs team routing
/sprint-advance <solo_execute | planning> --feature email-receipts
<builders in worktrees; heartbeat every N turns>
/sprint-advance reviewing                               # regression-sentinel + conventions-enforcer PASS
/sprint-advance integrating                             # integrator merges; pr-composer drafts PR
/sprint-complete email-receipts --tokens N --duration-min M

At each step prusik enforces:

• Writable paths by phase (PreToolUse hook)
• Exit artifact existence + schema before advancing (advance gate + Stop hook)
• Required sections + must_contain tokens (plan approval, regression PASS, etc.)
• Cross-reference integrity (scope.md's declared modules must exist in the repo)
• Pre-sprint gates (brief-critique PASS before scoping)

What's in prusik

Engine (prusik/)

Module	Purpose
evidence.py	The anti-fabrication primitive: executed_count (real work from the tool's own output) + prove_verdict. Shared by prove and gate capture
prove.py	prusik prove — standalone "did it actually run clean?" gate (no FSM)
schema.py	Loads YAML schemas; validates briefs, scopes, triage decisions; cross-refs module paths against the repo
ledger.py	Append-only .sprint/ledger.jsonl; richer digest() with outcome stats
phases.py	Phase FSM engine; writable-path resolution; sprint state on disk
gate.py	Hook + CLI entry points: pre-tool, stop, session-start, advance, brief, scope, sprint-start, sprint-complete
discovery.py	Inventory + dep graph (plugin-based)
discovery_plugins/	python (ast), javascript/typescript/jsx/tsx (regex), go (regex)
triage.py	Pure-code routing from scope.md + brief.md to decisions/<feature>.json
watchdog.py	Polls heartbeats, phase staleness, budget — files incidents under .sprint/incidents/
issues.py	Tracker sync coordinator
issue_plugins/	github (via gh CLI), linear (stub)
serve.py	Tier-3 GUI: stdlib http.server rendering a form from the brief schema
init.py	prusik init — scaffolds prusik into a target project

Templates (prusik/templates/ — copied by prusik init)

• .claude/ — settings.json, sprint-config.yaml, agents/, commands/, schemas/
• artifacts/ — brief/scope/plan/retro skeletons

Commands

Command	What it does
prusik prove [--kind tests|lint|types] [--min N] [--json] -- <cmd>	Prove a command actually ran clean (no FSM); rc=0 only if proven
prusik scan [--detectors a,b] [--no-local-detectors]	Static detectors (binding-mismatch, test-reach) + your own from .claude/detectors/*.py
prusik init [--conventions PATH] [--force]	Scaffold into current project
prusik gate pre-tool	PreToolUse hook: block writes/bash outside phase
prusik gate stop	Stop hook: block session end if phase artifacts missing
prusik gate session-start	SessionStart hook: inject active sprint context
prusik gate advance <phase> --feature F	Advance FSM, verify exit artifacts
prusik gate brief <path>	Validate a brief against the schema
prusik gate scope <path>	Validate a scope artifact (plus cross-ref)
prusik gate sprint-start <feature>	Begin a sprint (runs pre-sprint gates)
prusik gate sprint-complete --feature F [--duration-min M] [--tokens N] [--escalated]	Close, record predicted vs actual
prusik discovery inventory | dep-graph | all	Deterministic discovery
prusik triage --feature F	Pure-code solo/team routing
prusik issues sync	Pull issues from configured tracker
prusik issues search "query"	Cheap keyword search over synced issues
prusik watchdog [--poll MIN]	One-shot or polling heartbeat/budget watcher
prusik serve [--port N]	Launch local web form at 127.0.0.1:N
prusik status	Current phase, writable patterns, exit artifact status
prusik digest	Ledger summary: outcomes, escalation rate, prediction error, gate blocks by phase
prusik metrics [--since ISO] [--json]	Defect-prevention scorecard: what prusik flagged/caught/blocked (factual ledger counts)

Concepts

Engine vs opinions

Prusik ships the enforcement engine (language-agnostic). Opinions come from convention packs — directories with a conventions.yaml manifest. A target project can ingest one or more packs; each pack's content becomes a convention baseline that roles read from.

The phase FSM

Declared in .claude/sprint-config.yaml. Each phase specifies:

• writable — glob patterns the PreToolUse hook enforces
• deny_bash — regex patterns for shell commands blocked in this phase
• exit_artifacts — files (with optional schema/section/content validators) required before advancing
• budget_tokens — advisory budget; watchdog files an incident if exceeded

Pre-sprint gates

A sprint can't start until declared gates pass. Default: brief_critique requires reports/<feature>/brief-critique.txt containing PASS (produced by the brief-critic role). Disable via pre_sprint_gates.brief_critique.enabled: false.

Triage

prusik triage --feature <name> is pure-code. Reads design/<feature>/scope.md + briefs/<feature>.md, applies heuristics from sprint-config.yaml, writes decisions/<feature>.json. Zero LLM tokens.

Ledger + digest

Every phase transition, gate block, triage decision, watchdog incident, and sprint completion writes to .sprint/ledger.jsonl. prusik digest surfaces:

• Sprint outcomes and solo→team escalation rate
• Mean prediction error for duration and tokens
• Gate blocks by phase (where are the rough edges?)
• Triage mode distribution
• Watchdog incident counts by kind

This is how prusik becomes self-tuning: if escalation rate climbs or prediction error drifts, tune the heuristics in sprint-config.yaml.

For the team-lead view — what has prusik actually caught? — prusik metrics turns the same ledger into a defect-prevention scorecard: binding-mismatches flagged, non-runs/failures caught by the evidence gate, review fix-rounds, out-of-phase writes blocked, verify-loop closure rate. Every number is a recorded event (factual, not a modeled "bugs prevented" claim); --json feeds a dashboard or trend.

Input surfaces (GUI)

Three ways to author a brief. Same schema; same canonical briefs/<slug>.md output.

Tier	Surface	Audience	Shipped?
1	/brief-new slash command wizard	Engineers using Claude Code	✓
2	prusik gate brief <path> (validate hand-written)	Engineers outside CC	✓
3	prusik serve — local web form at 127.0.0.1:8765	Non-engineer stakeholders	✓
4	Issue tracker template (labels → enums)	Teams living in Linear/GitHub	Sketch — see issues.tracker config

Cohesion safeguards (v0.3)

Three mechanical defenses against scope drift across features, each running automatically:

1. Map staleness detection. prusik discovery fingerprint-map snapshots the dep-graph when design/map.md is written. The map_freshness pre-sprint gate compares the current dep-graph against the fingerprint and blocks /sprint-start if drift exceeds max_drift_pct (default 30%). Forces the cartographer to refresh before a new feature sprint runs on a stale map.

2. scope-critic reviewer. scoping phase now requires reports/<feature>/scope-approval.txt to contain APPROVED. Mirrors plan-critic but for the scope artifact. Catches missed blast radius, overreached size, hollow risks — at the cheapest possible stage.

3. Cross-artifact consistency checks. prusik gate advance now runs deterministic checks between artifacts:

   • plan_within_scope — plan.md's modules ⊆ scope.md's modules; scope creep caught at planning→building advance
   • builder_writes_within_plan — files written under worktrees/*/ must fall inside plan.md's declared modules (tests exempted); catches rogue builders at building→reviewing advance
   • brief_type_matches_scope — bug_fix/doc/config with L/XL size is flagged at scoping→triage advance

Compared to other harness / agent tooling

Prusik operates at one specific layer — process discipline for build-time agent teams. Other tools occupy adjacent layers; prusik composes with them, doesn't try to absorb them.

Tool	Layer	What it does	When to use it INSTEAD of prusik
learn-harness-engineering	Pedagogy	Course + skill that teaches how to build a harness; ships templates, not a runtime	If you want to LEARN harness design before adopting one. Prusik is the runtime adopters reach for after the course.
sentrux	Architectural measurement	Real-time codebase quality signal (5 root-cause metrics, MCP integration)	If you want continuous architectural quality feedback. Composes with prusik via behavior_regression.command = "sentrux gate ."
helmor	Local desktop UI	Tauri-based workbench wrapping Claude Code SDK + OpenAI Codex SDK; SQLite-backed sessions	If you want a GUI for managing agent sessions. Prusik is headless / hooks-based; orthogonal layer.
future-agi	Production observability	OTel-native tracing + 50+ eval metrics + gateway + guardrails for live agents	If you need production runtime observability. Prusik is build-time-only; future-agi is run-time.
GitHub Spec Kit	Pre-planning	Generate detailed specs and plans before writing code	If you prefer waterfall-style design-then-implement. Prusik chose the opposite posture: ship narrow on recurrence trigger, defer until evidence.
Bare Claude Code	None	Just the CLI, no harness	If your project is small / one-off and the agent works fine without enforcement. Prusik's value compounds with project complexity.
LangGraph / AutoGen / CrewAI	Multi-agent orchestration framework	General-purpose multi-agent coordination libraries	If you're building a custom agent runtime. Prusik is opinionated for Claude Code specifically; these frameworks are agent-agnostic but require you to engineer the harness yourself.

Prusik's strength: opinionated, discipline-first, multi-agent decomposition with critic-actor separation, recurrence-trigger framework that prevents speculative complexity. Phase FSM + schema-validated artifacts + ungameable signal design.

Prusik's gaps (honest):

• Claude Code-coupled. Hooks contract is CC-specific. Codex / Cursor / other agent runtimes need a different harness.
• Single-active-sprint. .sprint/state.json assumes one developer-with-AI per checkout. Multiple developers running parallel agent sessions on the same repo isn't modeled.
• Python-AST-privileged. First-class discovery for Python; regex-based for JS/TS/Go; unsupported for Rust/Java/Ruby (until tree-sitter discovery lands, planned but recurrence-gated).
• No UI. Prusik is CLI + hooks. If you need a visual treemap or session browser, pair with helmor or sentrux.
• No production runtime. Prusik's job ends at sprint-complete. Production observability is future-agi's job.

The composition story: prusik's behavior_regression and project_policy blocks (v0.7.1, v0.8.0) explicitly invoke arbitrary commands during reviewing. This is the integration point with sentrux (sentrux gate .), with project pre-commit pipelines (pre-commit run --all-files), with browser smoke (pytest -m browser_smoke), and with anything else that exits non-zero on failure. Prusik doesn't replace these; it consumes them.

If you're not sure which layer you need, run prusik doctor after prusik init — it scores your harness across five subsystems and points at the lowest one with a concrete next step.

Design limits (honest)

• Depth is not gateable. Schemas catch structural issues; they can't catch shallow thinking. Reviewer roles (brief-critic, scope-critic, plan-critic, conventions-enforcer) add judgment in isolated context windows, but a human reviews design/ weekly.
• Experimental surface. CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 is still experimental; prusik pairs teams with worktrees and treats teams as ephemeral sprints, not long-running processes.
• Non-Python dep graphs are regex-based. Good-enough for scoping; not a real parser. Replace with tree-sitter per language if accuracy matters.
• Watchdog runs out-of-band. Prusik ships the command; installation (via /schedule, cron, or a polling terminal) is left to the adopter to match their environment.
• Linear plugin is a stub. Implement prusik/issue_plugins/linear.py with the Linear GraphQL API when you need it.

Self-hosting

Prusik develops itself with prusik. .claude/settings.json and .claude/sprint-config.yaml at repo root wire hooks for work on prusik source. The self-host config includes extra writable paths for prusik/** and tests/** during solo_execute/building phases — so prusik-on-prusik development doesn't fight its own gates.

Repository layout

prusik/                    — engine
  discovery_plugins/       — per-language graph builders
  issue_plugins/           — per-tracker sync
  templates/               — copied into target projects by `prusik init`
    .claude/               — settings, sprint-config, agents, commands, schemas
    artifacts/             — brief/scope/plan/retro skeletons
.claude/                   — self-host: prusik's own config
examples/greenfield/       — demo of `prusik init` against a fresh project
tests/test_smoke.py        — 17 smoke tests covering every engine module

License

Apache 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.