Golden Path

Golden Path

The golden path is the opinionated, supported, paved way from idea to production. The term comes from Spotify; Netflix calls it the "paved road". It is not the only way through the harness, it is the recommended one.

/golden-path

One command runs all six gated stages: /product-manager:run (prd → prp) then /sse:run (plan → dev → test → pr → monitor). Idea in, merged PR out.

The five properties

A real golden path is defined by five properties, all of which harness-kit aims to satisfy:

• Opinionated: one pipeline, repo conventions, no bikeshedding the flow.
• Supported: sensors + evals gate every stage. The harness catches drift, not you.
• Optional: step off any time, run stages solo. No enforcement, no punishment.
• Self-serviceable: one command. No tickets, no waiting on a platform team.
• Transparent / extensible: every stage names what ran (sensors, guides, evals); override per repo via conventions/. An abstraction you can see through and bend.

The combination is the point: opinionated and optional, supported and transparent. It paves a lane without building a fence.

flowchart LR
    idea([idea]) --> prd --> prp --> plan --> dev --> test --> pr --> merged([merged PR])
    subgraph PM["/product-manager:run"]
        prd
        prp
    end
    subgraph SSE["/sse:run"]
        plan
        dev
        test
        pr
    end

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Start from a brief

The idea-brief builder collects the inputs the PRD needs (squad, problem, hypothesis, customers, metric) and emits a paste-ready /golden-path kick, with inline validation that holds you to the PRD conventions as you type. Hosted at pierry.github.io/harness-kit/brief/. Already know the idea cold? Skip the builder and type /golden-path with the brief yourself.

Flags (passed to the SSE half)

• --local, stop after test, no PR. Dev + test locally.
• --sdd, spec-driven loop variant (plan once, dev↔test↔eval until the PRP spec is met). Local only.
• --no-monitor, PR opens, skip the automatic merge-watch.

Stepping off the path

The "optional" property in practice. Run any stage solo:

Detour	Command
Just the PRD / PRP	/product-manager:prd · :prp
Just plan / dev / test / pr	/sse:plan · :dev · :test · :pr
Dev + test, no PR	/sse:run --local
Spec-driven loop	/sse:sdd
Resume where you left off	/pipeline:continue
Abandon the active run	/pipeline:reset

Same sensors, same evals, same artifacts. You lose the one-command convenience, not the support.

Per-discipline paving

A golden-path principle: one paved lane per engineering discipline. harness-kit does this in the dev stage, auto-selecting the repo's discipline conventions:

.claude/conventions/{backend,web,mobile,devops}.md

When a file exists, project wins over the SSE defaults. These overrides are the per-discipline paving, feedforward the team controls. See Guides.

Transparency: what runs behind the curtain

The golden path abstracts, it never hides. Every stage summary names the sensors, evals, guides, and refs that ran, actual names, not a generic "done":

sensors: plan-structure ok, plan-feasibility ok
eval:    plan-quality 8/10 (attempts: 1)
guides:  pipeline.md, coding-style.md, skills/{area}/SKILL.md
refs:    prp/{feature_id}.md, conventions/{area}.md

Want to see deeper? Read the sensors/, evals/, guides/ under .claude/agents/<agent>/. Plain markdown. Nothing sealed.

See also

• Pipeline and Stages: the six stages in detail
• Harness Engineering: why the path is gated the way it is
• Agents: the agents the path orchestrates