User Guide
Day-to-day usage of Harness in VS Code.
Harness keeps you in one IDE while you use Copilot, Claude, Cursor, Devin, or Kiro, with specs and context files applied in the same chat. Overview: Why Harness.
| Panel | Command |
|---|---|
| Chat | Click Harness icon in Activity Bar |
| Spec Manager | Harness: Open Spec Manager |
| Configuration | Harness: Open Configuration |
| Context | Harness: Show Context |
- Optionally add files to context (right-click → Add to Harness Context)
- Select provider pill (Copilot, Cursor, etc.)
- Select mode (Ask / Agent / Spec+Agent for Copilot)
- Type message →
Ctrl+Enter - Click file links in responses to jump to code
See Chat Interface.
Click + New chat — clears history and starts a fresh session. Context files are kept unless you click Clear context.
Change the provider pill before sending the next message. History remains in the UI but the new agent only receives messages sent after the switch (per session routing).
Harness: Copilot Login runs gh auth refresh --scopes copilot.
Configure in Configuration → MCP tab. Harness connects MCP servers defined in workspace settings for tool augmentation (extension-side).
Harness: Check getGoat prints agent readiness in a notification and the Output channel.
More: Configuration · Troubleshooting