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harness:certify — Claude Code skill: check agent score stability

Runs the evolved agent's evaluation three times and reports mean with standard deviation. Useful when you cannot tell whether a score holds up between runs.

Install into Claude Code · Skills CLI (Vercel) All methods and platforms ↓
npx skills add raphaelchristi/harness-evolver --skill certify -a claude-code
Open on GitHub

What harness:certify does

The skill reads .evolver.json, picks the best experiment and dataset, and evaluates the current code three times. It works in the project root rather than a worktree, since the best code is already merged. Each run carries a certify-run-$i prefix; read_results.py then pulls the three combined_scores into a summary, and mean plus standard deviation are computed from them.

You get a report with run count, mean, standard deviation and range. The verdict follows the deviation: under 0.05 the score is reliable, 0.05 to 0.10 means moderate spread, 0.10 and above means the number is meaningless because the LLM judge reads the criteria differently each time.

Python is required. The scripts live in .evolver/tools or $HOME/.evolver/tools, and the interpreter comes from $HOME/.evolver/venv/bin/python, falling back to python3. Both paths are controlled by EVOLVER_TOOLS and EVOLVER_PY. Without that setup the scripts are not found.

On moderate spread the skill suggests adding rubrics to dataset examples; on high spread it also points to /harness:evolve in heavy mode. A stable score leads to /harness:deploy.

What it helps with

  • confirm an agent's score does not drift between runs
  • compute mean and standard deviation across three evaluation runs
  • find out whether the LLM judge is causing score variance
  • decide whether the current agent build is safe to deploy
  • pull several evaluation experiments into one summary

Example prompts for the agent

  • Run /harness:certify and tell me if the current agent's score is stable
  • Certify the agent and report whether the verdict is STABLE or UNSTABLE
  • The score keeps moving between runs, compute the deviation over three runs

How to install harness:certify

1Skills CLI (Vercel)

npx skills add raphaelchristi/harness-evolver --skill certify -a claude-code

2Manually: put the files in place

~/.claude/skills/certify/SKILL.md

Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/certify/

Step by step, with commands for each platform: How to install skills in Claude Code: five ways

Questions about harness:certify

How do I install harness:certify in Claude Code?

Run npx skills add raphaelchristi/harness-evolver --skill certify -a claude-code. The skill lands at ~/.claude/skills/certify/SKILL.md.

What does harness:certify do?

It evaluates the agent on the current code three times and computes mean and standard deviation. The deviation decides whether the score can be trusted.

What does the skill need to run?

Python and the pipeline scripts run_eval.py and read_results.py, located in .evolver/tools or $HOME/.evolver/tools. The interpreter is taken from $HOME/.evolver/venv/bin/python, otherwise python3 is used.

Source text

SKILL.md · MIT
---
name: harness:certify
description: "Use when the user wants to verify that the evolved agent's score is stable and reliable. Runs evaluation multiple times and reports mean ± std."
allowed-tools: [Read, Bash, Glob]
---

# /harness:certify

Verify score stability by running evaluation multiple times and reporting statistical confidence.

## Resolve Tool Path

```bash
TOOLS="${EVOLVER_TOOLS:-$([ -d ".evolver/tools" ] && echo ".evolver/tools" || echo "$HOME/.evolver/tools")}"
EVOLVER_PY="${EVOLVER_PY:-$([ -f "$HOME/.evolver/venv/bin/python" ] && echo "$HOME/.evolver/venv/bin/python" || echo "python3")}"
```

## What To Do

Read `.evolver.json` to get the best experiment and dataset.

Run evaluation 3 times on the current code (not a worktree — the best code is already merged):

```bash
for i in 1 2 3; do
    $EVOLVER_PY $TOOLS/run_eval.py \
        --config .evolver.json \
        --worktree-path "." \
        --experiment-prefix "certify-run-$i"
done
```

After all 3 runs complete, read results and compute statistics:

```bash
$EVOLVER_PY $TOOLS/read_results.py --experiments "certify-run-1-{suffix},certify-run-2-{suffix},certify-run-3-{suffix}" --config .evolver.json --format summary
```

Calculate mean and standard deviation from the 3 combined_scores.

## Report

```
CERTIFICATION REPORT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Runs:  3
Mean:  {mean:.3f}
Std:   {std:.3f}
Range: {min:.3f} — {max:.3f}

Verdict: {STABLE|UNSTABLE}
```

**STABLE** (std < 0.05): Score is reliable. The agent performs consistently.

**MARGINAL** (0.05 <= std < 0.10): Score varies moderately. Consider adding rubrics to reduce judge variance.

**UNSTABLE** (std >= 0.10): Score is unreliable. The LLM judge interprets criteria differently across runs. Add few-shot examples or tighter rubrics.

## After Certification

If STABLE: suggest `/harness:deploy` to finalize.
If UNSTABLE: suggest adding rubrics to dataset examples, or running `/harness:evolve` with `heavy` mode for more thorough evaluation.

© raphaelchristi · MIT · raphaelchristi/harness-evolver

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