ClaudSkills / Engineering / engineering-misc

Debug My Harness

Q: What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Debug My Harness skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Debug My Harness is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Engineering category. Learn more at https://claudskills.com/learn/what-is-skill-md/.

Category: Engineering · Sub-category: engineering-misc · Last updated: 2026-07-21

type:debug

Diagnose why an agent harness misbehaved by reading the local flight-recorder ledger (.vigiles/runs.jsonl) — which skills fired or got hijacked, which hooks blocked or wrongly allowed, which subagent tool-contract violations happened, and how a skill's trigger rate moved. Use when asked why a skill stopped firing, why a hook didn't block, why the wrong skill ran, or to debug/investigate what the harness actually did. NOT for writing new rules (use strengthen) or editing the spec (use edit-spec).

Security AStatic scan found no risk patternsHow grading works ›

From the source SKILL.md

Diagnose harness misbehavior from the flight recorder — the local, append-only ledger at .vigiles/runs.jsonl that vigiles writes as your harness runs. It records what actually happened, so you debug from evidence instead of guessing.

What this skill does

Debug My Harness is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the engineering-misc sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/debug-my-harness/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

When to invoke it: Use when asked why a skill stopped firing, why a hook didn't block, why the wrong skill ran, or to debug/investigate what the harness actually did. NOT for writing new rules (use strengthen) or editing the spec (use edit-spec).

Who uses this skill

The Debug My Harness Claude Code skill is built for software engineers, backend developers, full-stack teams, and technical leads building and maintaining production systems. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 156,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/debug-my-harness
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/debug-my-harness/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/debug-my-harness/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/debug-my-harness/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/debug-my-harness/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\debug-my-harness\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

📱 Install from your phone or desktop Telegram

Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.

See pricing → Download desktop app

Frequently asked questions

How do I install the Debug My Harness Claude Code skill?

Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/debug-my-harness/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.

What does the Debug My Harness skill do?

Is this skill free to install?

Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.

When should I use the Debug My Harness skill?

Use Debug My Harness when your Claude Code task falls under the Engineering category — specifically in the engineering misc area. Claude Code auto-discovers installed skills and invokes the right one based on the task description, so you can also ask Claude directly (e.g. "use Debug My Harness" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at /category/engineering/.

What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Debug My Harness skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Debug My Harness is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Engineering category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.

Attribution & license

Source: https://github.com/zernie/vigiles/blob/HEAD/skills/debug-my-harness/SKILL.md
License: MIT
Author: zernie
Website: https://vigiles.sh

Cite this skill

If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:

APA

zernie. (2026). Debug My Harness [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/debug-my-harness/

BibTeX

@misc{debug-my-harness-2026,
  author    = {zernie},
  title     = {Debug My Harness [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/debug-my-harness/}
}

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Badge

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Security scan

Grade A · scanned 2026-07-21 — free static scan against the OWASP Agentic Skills Top 10.

No risk patterns were found in any of the ten OWASP-aligned categories. How grading works ›

✓ Prompt injection
✓ Data exfiltration
✓ Supply chain
✓ Reverse shell
✓ Credentials
✓ Execution
✓ Filesystem
✓ Persistence
✓ Obfuscation
✓ Network

Show this grade on your repo (click to copy):

[![Security: A](https://img.shields.io/badge/Security-A-2e7d32)](https://claudskills.com/skills/debug-my-harness/#security)

More Engineering skills

Browse all Engineering skills in the ClaudSkills registry, or explore these other picks from the same category:

Browse all Engineering skills → Top 100 skills

Part of ClaudSkills — the open registry for Claude Skills & Claude Code Skills. · What's New · Install guide · About · llms.txt

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