Generic Harness

The Generic harness is the recommended default for most use cases. It bundles 12 core capabilities that cover file operations, command execution, web access, memory, budgeting, and context management.

When to Use

• General-purpose assistants
• Coding and scripting tasks
• Research workflows
• Any session where you want a solid set of defaults

Configuration

Property	Value
Type	generic
System Prompt	”You are a helpful assistant.”
Default Model	None (inherits from agent or organization)

Bundled Capabilities

Capability	What it provides
File System	Read, write, list, grep, and delete files in the session workspace (/workspace)
Virtual Bash	Sandboxed bash shell for running commands, scripts, and text processing
Web Fetch	Fetch web content with file download support
Storage	Key/value store for general data and encrypted secret storage
Session	Access session metadata and manage session title
AGENTS.md	Reads AGENTS.md from workspace and injects project-level instructions
Agent Skills	Discover and activate skills from /.agents/skills/
Infinity Context	Trims older messages from the live prompt while exposing earlier history via query_history
OpenAI Tool Search	Defers tool schema loading on supported models to reduce prompt size
Context Compaction	Auto-compacts context at 85% budget via cascading strategies
Budgeting	Token budget enforcement with configurable meters and rules
Tool Output Persistence	Persists full tool output to /.outputs/ before truncation for lossless retrieval

Infinity Context and Context Compaction work together to keep long sessions unbounded. See Context Compaction for details.

See Also

• Base Harness — empty harness for full control
• Platform Chat Harness — extends Generic with platform management
• Harnesses feature guide — harness selection and API management