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Research Notes: 003-agentic-harness-foundation

Problem​

Generated codebases were runnable, but lacked consistent agent guidance and explicit contribution boundaries. This caused confusion about where enhancements should be made.

Findings​

  • A minimal, standardized harness in each generated codebase reduces onboarding friction for AI-assisted workflows.
  • Contribution policy must be explicit in generated outputs to preserve spec-first governance.
  • Duplicating large documentation sets in each generated output increases cognitive load; concise top-level files are preferred.

Decision​

Add exactly three root-level harness files from state 003 onward:

  • AGENTS.md
  • ARCHITECTURE.md
  • CONTRIBUTING.md

Keep generated runbooks (RUN_FROM_GENERATED.md, script readmes) as the runtime source of truth.