Watercolor style: A contract document locked with chains, beside three checkpoint gates labeled "read files", "modify code", "execute commands"

Day 3 | Harness Hard Constraints: Static Contracts and Lifecycle Hooks

Previous article: Day 2 | Minimalism and Hard Isolation: The Pi Paradigm. Now that we understand why Pi strips features, we now address a more specific question: after the cuts, how should the remaining capabilities be managed? This is the backbone article of L3. Navigation for subsequent articles: Day Type Topic Day 4 Practice Rewrite your AGENTS.md + add an interception Hook Day 5 Backbone Tools as Interfaces: Three Extension Paths Day 6 Practice Add a new tool to your Agent Day 7 Backbone Meta-Architecture: Everything is a Plugin Day 8 Backbone Memory, Traces, and Observability Day 9 Practice Graduation project: Build a team-level CI/CD automation Harness Day 10 Phase summary L3 graduation assessment + Harness future trends The Problem with “Allow Everything” Day 1’s miniharness had 7 tools; Day 2’s Pi cut it down to 4. Regardless of the count, they share a common premise: all tools are available by default. ...

2026-10-09 · 7 min · Alex Wang