Installation Contract

Harness has one product profile and one independent advisory add-on.

Core

The exact core payload is declared in scripts/harness-install-files.txt. It contains generic repository guidance, working-memory structure, an invariant-encoding pattern and skill, and explicit-only onboarding and improvement skills.

The platform bootstrap installs a checksum-verified harness binary under scripts/bin/ and delegates installation or update to that candidate.

Core installation:

• records exact upstream bytes under .harness-core/;
• preserves consumer files through merge or human-directed conflict handling;
• backs up replaced files;
• does not install an application stack or product policy;
• does not install schemas, databases, orchestration, or background processes;
• does not delete pre-existing legacy Harness files.

Engineering Wisdom Add-On

--with-engineering-wisdom or -WithEngineeringWisdom copies the explicit-only advisory skill declared in scripts/engineering-wisdom-install-files.txt.

Omitting the flag does not install or activate the skill. A later install without the flag leaves an existing copy untouched. Removal is explicit and stateless: delete only .agents/skills/engineering-wisdom/.

Advice cannot establish consumer policy or authorize an architecture rewrite.

Merge And Override

• --merge / -Merge: preserve existing files and add missing managed paths.
• --override / -Override: back up and replace protected Harness paths.
• --force / -Force: overwrite individual managed files with backups.
• --dry-run / -DryRun: preview without writing.

Update

harness update verifies release identity and checksum, compares installed base, local bytes, and incoming bytes, and applies the complete plan transactionally.

Overlapping text edits stage a frozen resolution session. Structural conflicts must be corrected before replanning. Successful activation writes provenance last and replaces only the selected repository's executable after core files succeed.

Removed Profile

The former --with-cli, --upgrade-cli, -WithCli, and -UpgradeCli profiles ended with protocol v1. Current installers reject those options. Existing consumer databases and binaries are not automatically deleted.