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Getting started

Getting started

This tutorial walks you from a fresh clone to a validated harness. You will edit the manifest, run the build gate, and confirm the bundled enforcement hooks are wired.

Prerequisites

jq (structured-data processor)
ajv (ajv-cli) and ajv-formats (npm install -g ajv-cli ajv-formats)
markdownlint-cli2 (npm install -g markdownlint-cli2)
python3 (the markdown enforcement hooks)

1. Declare your harness

Open harness.config.json. It is the one file you edit to stand up your own multi-topic harness. Set your topics, the research dimensions you want the engine to fan out across, your output targets, and which packs are enabled.

The manifest is validated against harness.config.schema.json — your editor will flag mistakes inline via the $schema reference.

2. Run the build gate

bash scripts/verify.sh

This validates every contract against its sample, runs the citation-integrity gate, and runs each milestone’s structural checks. It must exit 0.

3. Confirm the harness is clean

markdownlint-cli2 "**/*.md"

Zero errors is the bar. If the markdown enforcement hooks are wired (they are, in .claude/settings.json), Claude Code auto-fixes most markdown on edit and warns — never suppresses — on the rest.

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