krow

krow is a host-agnostic agent harness for coding work.

It packages three things:

• a lean execution contract
• a runtime-agnostic state and signal model
• host wrappers that expose explicit krow entrypoints without polluting the core prompts

Install

From npm:

npx krow-cli init

The published package name is krow-cli. The installed command remains krow.

That installs:

• Codex $krow
• Codex $work
• Claude Code /krow
• Gemini CLI /krow

The generated wrappers call a local bootstrap launcher that executes a runtime copy installed under the user's home directory. After init, host-driven runs no longer depend on npm cache state or package-name resolution.

Core stance

• model capability is already good enough for many engineering tasks
• quality comes from orchestration, not prompt bloat
• do not guess; gather evidence first
• when clarification is needed, ask for the full current bundle at once
• one worker owns one task with one clear output boundary
• use the filesystem for baton passing, resume, and durable state

Layout

• AGENTS.md: always-loaded execution contract
• docs/: non-runtime design docs and repo-local workflow skills
• docs/HARNESS.md: full system blueprint
• docs/FOUNDATIONS.md: philosophy and design lineage
• docs/skills/: reusable workflow surfaces
• prompts/: narrow role prompts
• schemas/: payload, signal, and state schemas
• install/: host wrapper installer

Usage

• In Codex, invoke $krow ...
• In Claude Code, invoke /krow ...
• In Gemini CLI, invoke /krow ...

The installed wrappers are thin host adapters over the same local control surface:

• route: classify a message as chat or work without creating workflow state
• intake: extract anchors, missing evidence, bundled clarification questions, and a proposed unit graph
• start: create workflow state, carve ready units when strong split signals exist, and emit the first control signal
• status, next, resume: inspect or continue persisted workflow state
• submit-phase, submit-decisions, stop: advance or terminate local workflow state

Runtime signals are explicit:

• run: execute one bounded phase for one workflow unit
• gate: stop for bundled external input only
• done: terminal completed, blocked, or stopped state
• fault: recoverable or unrecoverable runtime problem

The wrappers use intake --intent work first so agents gather evidence, bundled questions, and a proposed unit graph before a workflow starts. After start, the runtime advances each unit through clarify -> execute -> verify -> capture, schedules the next ready unit from the dependency graph, and persists:

• workflow state under .krow/state/workflows/<workflowId>.json
• task packets under .krow/tasks/<workflowId>/
• relay and baton files under .krow/relays/<workflowId>/

When a phase or decision payload contains apostrophes, do not pass it as a single shell-quoted argument. submit-phase and submit-decisions accept - to read JSON from stdin, so prefer a heredoc:

krow submit-phase <workflowId> clarify - <<'KROW_JSON'
<JSON>
KROW_JSON

The current contract is still host-assisted. krow does not spawn teammates itself, but it now gives the host richer scheduling metadata, durable task packets, and stricter clarify/verify payload contracts so parallel-capable hosts can behave more predictably.