harness-firstlisted

# Harness-First A code scaffolding protocol that sets up the testing and verification structure before writing any feature logic. The harness is built first — then the features are built inside it. Builds without a harness are fragile. Bugs hide until they compound. Harness-first means every component is independently verifiable from the moment it's written. --- ## What a Harness Is A harness is a lightweight wrapper that: - Lets you run any individual component in isolation - Prints clear pass/fail output for each test - Makes it obvious when something breaks before you wire components together - Requires zero external testing frameworks — just Python or Node.js built-ins A harness is NOT a full test suite. It is NOT pytest or Jest (unless the project already uses them). It is the minimum structure needed to verify that each piece works before moving to the next. --- ## The Harness-First Protocol ### Step 1 — Scaffold the project structure first Before any feature code: ``` project/ ├── main.py # entry point ├── harness.py # test runner — built first ├── logger.py # logs every run automatically ├── .env # secrets and config (never committed) ├── requirements.txt # dependencies └── README.md # what this does and how to run it ``` ### Step 2 — Build the harness before building features `harness.py` contains: - A list of test cases (what input, what expected output) - A runner that calls each component with the test input -