# Harness Migration > Diagnose and migrate a Harness Anything ledger from a machine that does not have the current Harness installed. Use when a project's harness/ ledger predates the current generation, when daemon attach fails because a current ledger has pre-S4 doc cuts, or when a user asks to upgrade, migrate, replay, or repair an old Harness ledger. The skill first confirms the symptom really is a ledger-generation mismatch, then fetches the current source into a temporary location without disturbing an existing Harness install. - Skill: `fairladyz625/harness-migration` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add fairladyz625/harness-migration` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/fairladyz625/harness-migration/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: fairladyz625 (https://skillmd.com/u/fairladyz625) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/fairladyz625/harness-migration --- # Harness Migration First confirm a broken `harness/` ledger actually has a generation mismatch rather than some other fault. If it does, replay it into a freshly initialized current-format repository; the source is never written to. Replay is the only supported migration path — there is no in-place repair tool. **This skill assumes nothing is installed.** It fetches the current source into a throwaway directory and runs everything from there. A Harness installation already on the machine — including a running daemon — is left untouched. ## Before anything: confirm this is the right document This skill is versioned in the `harness-anything` repository as `skills/harness-migration/SKILL.md` on **`main`**, and that branch is the authority. **Read it from a git ref, never from whatever working tree happens to be at hand** — a checkout parked on another branch may not carry this file at all, or may carry an older revision, and neither difference is visible once the text is in front of you. ```bash git -C show origin/main:skills/harness-migration/SKILL.md ``` A machine may also carry a separately maintained skill with a similar name — `harness-ledger-migration` is the one that exists today, and it is an older, **different** document rather than an alias. Following it instead is a silent wrong turn. The front matter settles it: this skill's `name:` is exactly `harness-migration`. ## The one rule that makes this work **Every command runs against an isolated daemon user root.** Export it once and keep it exported for the whole session: ```bash export HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK="$(cd "$(mktemp -d "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/ha-migration.XXXXXX")" && pwd -P)" export HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/daemon-user-root" mkdir -p "$HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT" ``` Without it, the CLI connects to whatever Harness daemon is already running on the machine and that daemon serves a different generation of the code. The failure does not announce itself as a conflict — it arrives as: ``` error code=missing_vertical ``` with `"origin":"daemon"` in the JSON receipt. **Match on those two fields, not on the hint text**: the hint describes an unavailable vertical, which is true but misleading, and it reads differently depending on which generation the running daemon serves. `code=missing_vertical` together with `"origin":"daemon"` means `HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT` is not set. Do **not** stop or uninstall the user's existing Harness to work around it: isolation is sufficient, and stopping their daemon interrupts work you are not responsible for restoring. The `cd … && pwd -P` wrapper around `mktemp` is what keeps the path readable. On macOS `$TMPDIR` already ends in a slash, so the template produces a doubled slash, and `/tmp` is itself a symlink into `/private/tmp`. Either way the raw path turns up in every receipt from here on and does not match what you see on the filesystem. `pwd -P` resolves both, once, at the start. Quoting is not involved: `"${TMPDIR:-/tmp}"/ha-migration.XXXXXX` and `"${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/ha-migration.XXXXXX"` are the same string to the shell, and neither one avoids the doubled slash. ### If your shell does not persist between commands The steps below accumulate exported variables and, in step 1, a shell function. An agent that gets a **fresh shell per tool call keeps none of them** — the second command runs with `HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT` unset and connects to the machine's own daemon, which is exactly the failure this section exists to prevent. This is the root cause of the downstream traps the later steps describe individually (zsh word-splitting in step 1, `nohup` not seeing the function in step 8, `env` resolving `ha` from `PATH` in step 9). Write the session state to a file and source it at the start of every later command: ```bash export HARNESS_MIGRATION_ENV="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/env.sh" cat > "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_ENV" < ``` Append each new `export` to that file as the steps below introduce it — `HA_ENTRY`, `ARCHIVE_SOURCE`, `WORK_SOURCE`, `TARGET_REPO`, `DRY_RUN`, `LEDGER_ARCHIVE`, `SOURCE_SHA_BEFORE`. Record `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_ENV` somewhere you will still have it later; it is the one path you must not lose. **Keep this file inside `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK`, and if you write anything anywhere else, put the repository name in its filename.** `mktemp` already makes the work directory unique, but agents habitually drop scratch files into a shared session scratchpad instead — and `env.sh`, `dry-run.txt` and `apply.log` are the same name in every migration. When two migrations run in parallel, a sibling overwriting your env file is not hypothetical: it has happened, and it presents as your own variables quietly turning into someone else's, several steps after the damage. Either keep everything under `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK`, or name it `env-.sh`, `dry-run-.txt`, `apply-.log`. ## 1. Fetch the current source **Node 24 or newer is required.** Check before cloning: ```bash node --version ``` The CLI is run from its TypeScript entry point, which relies on Node's native type stripping. On an older Node every command fails with ``` TypeError [ERR_UNKNOWN_FILE_EXTENSION]: Unknown file extension ".ts" ``` which reads like a missing build step and is not one — no amount of `npm run build` fixes it. Stop and tell the user to upgrade Node; nothing below works until they do. ```bash cd "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK" git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/FairladyZ625/harness-anything.git ha-src cd ha-src npm install --no-audit --no-fund export HA_ENTRY="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/ha-src/packages/cli/src/index.ts" ha() { node "$HA_ENTRY" "$@"; } ha --version ``` Expect a version line. The repository is about 10 MB and install takes seconds. **`ha` here is a shell function, not an exported variable.** The obvious `export HA="node …/index.ts"` followed by `$HA --version` works in bash and silently fails in zsh, which does not word-split unquoted parameters: zsh passes `node …/index.ts` as a **single** argument and the receipt comes back `unsupported_command`. A function behaves identically in both shells. If your shell does not persist between commands, append both the variable and the function to the env file from the top of this skill, and source it every time: ```bash { echo "export HA_ENTRY='$HA_ENTRY'" echo 'ha() { node "$HA_ENTRY" "$@"; }'; } >> "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_ENV" ``` Two consequences worth knowing now rather than at step 8: - The function lives in the shell that defined it. Anything that runs in a **detached** process — see step 8 — must spell out `node "$HA_ENTRY" …` instead, and sourcing the env file does not change that. - `env -u HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT ha …`, which step 9 uses on purpose, does **not** see the function. `env` execs a program, so it resolves `ha` from `PATH` — the machine's own installation. That is exactly what step 9 wants, and step 9 says so again where it matters. **Do not look for `node_modules/.bin/ha`.** The published `bin` points at `dist/`, which a source checkout does not contain, so the linked binary is absent. Running the TypeScript entry directly is the supported path here and needs no build step. ## 1a. Confirm the symptom is a ledger-generation mismatch before importing Do this **after step 1 fetches the current source, before creating a destination or running `migrate import`**. The symptoms below are an entry point, not a decision: both kinds of ledger can produce them. | What you see | What it means | Next action | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `doc event envelope or payload is invalid` | Could be either an older ledger or a current ledger with pre-S4 doc cuts. | Run the read-only event scan below. | | daemon receipt `repo_attach_failed` or `repo_unavailable` while attaching the repository | The daemon could not build its projection; it does not identify the ledger generation. | Run the read-only event scan below; do not retry attach as a probe. | Set the source path once. The scan only reads its event files; it does not need the daemon and does not alter the source. ```bash export ARCHIVE_SOURCE="$(cd /absolute/path/to/repository-with-harness && pwd -P)" export CANONICAL_EVENT_CONTRACT="file://$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/ha-src/packages/kernel/src/domain/doc-sync.contract.ts" node --input-type=module - "$ARCHIVE_SOURCE/harness/events" "$CANONICAL_EVENT_CONTRACT" <<'NODE' import { readdir, readFile } from 'node:fs/promises'; import { join } from 'node:path'; const [eventsRoot, contractUrl] = process.argv.slice(2); const { parseCanonicalEvent } = await import(contractUrl); const counts = { files: 0, parsed: 0, unknown_schema: 0, legacy_cut_shape: 0, other: 0 }; async function* eventFiles(dir) { for (const entry of await readdir(dir, { withFileTypes: true })) { const file = join(dir, entry.name); if (entry.isDirectory()) yield* eventFiles(file); else if (entry.isFile() && entry.name.endsWith('.json') && entry.name !== 'head.json') yield file; } } function hasLegacyCut(value) { if (!value || typeof value !== 'object') return false; if (Array.isArray(value)) return value.some(hasLegacyCut); const cut = value.baseLedgerSha; if (cut && typeof cut === 'object' && !Array.isArray(cut)) { const keys = Object.keys(cut).sort(); if (keys.length === 2 && keys[0] === 'repoId' && keys[1] === 'sha') return true; } return Object.values(value).some(hasLegacyCut); } for await (const file of eventFiles(eventsRoot)) { counts.files++; let text, event; try { text = await readFile(file, 'utf8'); event = JSON.parse(text); parseCanonicalEvent(text); counts.parsed++; } catch (error) { const message = error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error); if (message === 'canonical event schema is unknown') counts.unknown_schema++; else if (message === 'doc event envelope or payload is invalid' && event?.schema === 'doc-event/v1' && hasLegacyCut(event)) counts.legacy_cut_shape++; else counts.other++; } } console.log(JSON.stringify(counts, null, 2)); NODE ``` Interpret the counts conservatively: - If `unknown_schema > 0` **or** `other > 0`, this is a previous-generation ledger rather than the narrow S4-only cut mismatch. Continue with the replay steps in this skill. The replay importer constructs current migration events rather than copying source event bytes. - If `legacy_cut_shape > 0`, `unknown_schema = 0`, and `other = 0`, the ledger is a current-generation ledger whose doc cuts predate S4. Replay handles it, and replay is the only supported path: **there is no in-place restamp migration, and none is planned.** An in-place restamp was built and evaluated; it was deliberately not shipped, because a tool that rewrites cut identity in place has to be trusted on a ledger nobody can re-derive, while replay reconstructs the destination from source events and leaves the source untouched. Know what replay costs you here: it remaps entity IDs and writes a new ledger, which is more than this ledger strictly needs — only its cut identity is stale. Budget for the ID remapping (see the ID mapping steps below) rather than looking for a narrower tool. If remapped IDs are genuinely unacceptable for your ledger, stop and report that; do not improvise a hand-edit of event bytes. - If all three failure counts are zero, the stream already parses under the current code. This is not a generation mismatch, so migration will not fix it; stop and investigate the reported symptom separately. If the scan itself cannot read the events directory or run the current parser, stop and report that failure. Do not infer the generation from `harness.yaml`: both generations can carry `schema: harness-anything/v1`. ## 2. Freeze and back up the source ledger Back up and digest **`harness/` only** — never the repository root. ```bash export WORK_SOURCE="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/legacy-copy" mkdir -p "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/backups" "$WORK_SOURCE" export LEDGER_ARCHIVE="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/backups/legacy-harness.tar" COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar -cf "$LEDGER_ARCHIVE" -C "$ARCHIVE_SOURCE" harness export SOURCE_SHA_BEFORE="$(COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar -cf - --exclude='harness/.git' -C "$ARCHIVE_SOURCE" harness | shasum -a 256 | awk '{print $1}')" printf 'source-before %s\n' "$SOURCE_SHA_BEFORE" tar -xf "$LEDGER_ARCHIVE" -C "$WORK_SOURCE" ``` `$WORK_SOURCE` now contains `harness/` and nothing else, which is all the importer reads — `--source` takes the repository root and descends into `harness/` itself. Three things this deliberately does **not** do, each for a reason worth knowing: - **No `git bundle`.** `harness/` is its own git repository and the outer repo ignores it (`/harness/` in `.gitignore`, `git ls-files harness/` returns nothing). A bundle of the outer repo therefore contains **zero** ledger content — it looks like a backup and protects nothing. - **No repository-root digest.** The root contains `.harness/`, which is ignored runtime state — locks, `write-journal`, `cache`, `script-runs`, `task-holders` — that any running daemon rewrites continuously. A root digest changes on its own between the before and after reads, so the "source untouched" check would report a false failure every time. A check that must be ignored to proceed is worse than no check. - **No `cp -a` of the root.** It copies `node_modules` and the whole `.git` directory, which the importer never reads. The digest excludes `harness/.git` for the same reason the root digest is excluded entirely: it is live metadata, not content. A `git fetch` from any mirror or a background maintenance run rewrites `packed-refs`, `FETCH_HEAD` and the reflog without touching a single ledger file, and the closing comparison then fails for a reason unrelated to the importer. This bit a real migration — an unrelated mirror fetch landed mid-run and the source looked modified when it was not. **The archive is not filtered**: a backup must carry the ledger's own git history, and only the digest needs the exclusion. The digest and the `tar` print nothing while they run. On a **small ledger they are effectively instant** — about a second each for a 963-event, 257 MB `harness/` — so if you are staring at a blank prompt for more than a few seconds, look at the size of what you are digesting rather than waiting. Only a genuinely large ledger takes tens of seconds. Either way, if it runs for many minutes you are digesting more than `harness/`; check the `-C` argument. Nothing may write to `$ARCHIVE_SOURCE/harness/` while the migration runs, or the closing digest will differ for a reason that has nothing to do with the importer. Show the user `$LEDGER_ARCHIVE` and **stop until they confirm one independent copy exists off this machine.** Migration is one-shot; this is the only point where that confirmation is cheap. If you are a dispatched agent with no way to reach the user, you cannot satisfy that stop — say so rather than pretending you did. Record the archive path and its size, state plainly in your report that the off-machine copy was never confirmed, and continue. The rest of the migration writes only to `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK`, so nothing before step 9 can lose the source; step 9 is where the missing confirmation actually matters. **Only the confirmation is waived, not step 9.** Unless your dispatch says otherwise, landing the ledger and running the six landing checks are yours to do; carry the unconfirmed backup forward as a stated caveat in your report instead of treating it as permission to stop at step 8. Every repair below targets `$WORK_SOURCE`. `$ARCHIVE_SOURCE` is read-only and its `harness/` digest is re-checked at the end. ## 3. Initialize the destination Ask the user for the new repository id, owner person id, and display name. ```bash export TARGET_REPO="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/new-repository" mkdir -p "$TARGET_REPO" && cd "$TARGET_REPO" git init -q . && git commit -q --allow-empty -m "base" ha init --repo-id --person-id --display-name '' ``` Expect a receipt listing created paths and a commit sha. The first command in a fresh user root starts an isolated daemon on its own; that is expected and it belongs to this migration, not to the user's installation. If init fails, move this directory aside and start a new empty one. Do not repair a half-initialized target in place. ## 4. Dry-run and read the output ```bash export DRY_RUN="$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/dry-run.txt" ha migrate import --source "$WORK_SOURCE" --dry-run > "$DRY_RUN" 2>&1; echo "exit=$?" cat "$DRY_RUN" ``` **Use the importer as the classifier.** Do not inventory the old repository or invent categories of your own. Act only on what the report prints: - `Oracle: same-cut-projection` or `Oracle: rebuilt-source` - five reconciliation rows (task / decision / fact / relation / execution) - `Format observations` and each `ACCEPT` or `SKIP` line - `Attribution` - the authored coverage table and each `required` row - `Authored reconciliation` Do not manufacture `.harness/cache/task.sqlite` in the working source. If it is absent, the importer rebuilds a disposable read-only oracle from committed flat or sharded events and older authored packages. `Oracle: rebuilt-source` is the expected receipt for that path; the source tree and Git refs must remain byte-for-byte unchanged. Branch on those rows: | What the report shows | Go to | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | a `required` row saying `destination content differs` | section 5 | | `required` on `presets/**` | section 6 | | `ACCEPT schedule_definition_facet_mismatch` | review it in section 7; no source edit | | `unsupported_legacy_event` or `migration_projection_rebuild_failed` | section 7 | | any `- SKIP` line | review it in section 7; it is diagnostic, not a count subtraction | | any other `required` row | show the exact row to the user and stop — this workflow does not cover it | | no `required` and all five reconciliation rows pass | section 8 | ## 5. Resolve destination conflicts — one batch, one decision `ha init` seeds README, ADR, milestone, walls and `people.yaml` files. A source ledger usually has its own versions of those paths. Each conflict row prints both sides and the exact flag to use: ``` | people.yaml | required | 1 | FAIL | destination content differs: source kind=file, source sha256=240b9a55…, source bytes=561; destination kind=file, destination sha256=39e0af13…, destination bytes=512; resolve with --resolve harness/people.yaml=destination|source | ``` **Handle every conflict in one pass. Never ask about them one at a time** — a migration has a handful of these and each round trip costs the user an interruption for a decision that is usually the same one. Read both sides of all of them first: ```bash CONFLICTS=($(grep -o -- '--resolve [^=]*=' "$DRY_RUN" | sed 's/--resolve //;s/=$//' | sort -u)) printf 'conflicts: %s\n' "${#CONFLICTS[@]}" for c in "${CONFLICTS[@]}"; do printf '\n===== %s :: DESTINATION =====\n' "$c"; cat "$TARGET_REPO/$c" 2>/dev/null printf '\n===== %s :: SOURCE =====\n' "$c"; cat "$WORK_SOURCE/$c" 2>/dev/null done ``` **The default is `destination` for every row.** The destination file is the current format's skeleton and the migration exists to adopt it — a source file that merely says the same thing in the old shape has nothing to preserve. What the source file _may_ have is project-specific substance the skeleton does not carry: local conventions, routing rules, directory contracts, a project's own standards. **Carry that content forward into the destination file.** Merging is an edit you make, not something the importer does; the flag is still `=destination`. So present **one table** and ask for **one confirmation**: | path | resolution | what carries over from the old file | | ---------------------------------------- | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `harness/adr/README.md` | destination | when a lightweight ADR fits, `ha decision propose` for load-bearing choices, back-link rule | | `harness/context/architecture/README.md` | destination | manifest read order, model update boundary | | `harness/people.yaml` | **choose** | nothing — see below | Say plainly: this is the default, and they can override any row to `source` if they want the old file kept verbatim. One answer covers the whole table. **`people.yaml` is normally automatic.** Compatible rosters are unioned through the same People Action transition and published as `people-event/v1`; the destination owner binding remains and source-only people, roles, credentials, and non-conflicting scalar details carry forward. No question or hand edit is needed. Only a genuine scalar or role-authority contradiction produces a `required` row. For that row, ask which side to retain with the explicit flag and record the losing declaration in the hand-over. After migration, reconcile individual entries only through `ha people add`, `ha people set-role`, and `ha people remove`; never commit a manual edit to the ledger. **Do the merge edits after the final apply in step 8, not now.** Step 8 recreates the destination from scratch, which would discard anything edited earlier. Record the third column now; apply it once at the end. Collect the answers into repeated flags and re-run: ```bash export RESOLVE_ARGS=( --resolve 'harness/context/README.md=destination' --resolve 'harness/people.yaml=source' ) ha migrate import --source "$WORK_SOURCE" "${RESOLVE_ARGS[@]}" --dry-run > "$DRY_RUN" 2>&1; echo "exit=$?" ``` Each answer comes back as a row beginning `resolved: destination` or `resolved: source`, carrying both digests so the discarded side stays visible. A conflict left out of the flags stays `required`. A directory target accepts only `=destination`. If `=source` reports that the target is a directory, show the error and have the user handle that path. ## 6. Rebuild legacy presets as v3 packages Legacy preset packages are not carried over — they are rebuilt against the current format. ```bash find "$WORK_SOURCE/harness/presets" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d | sort ha preset inspect standard-task --profile baseline --vertical software/coding --locale en-US --json ``` The `legacy-migration` preset bundled with the current release documents the exact v2 → v3 field mapping. Read it: ```bash cat "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/ha-src/packages/preset/assets/software-coding/presets/legacy-migration/PRESET.md" ``` Build each replacement under `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/rebuilt-presets//`, then validate and install from the destination: ```bash cd "$TARGET_REPO" for NEW_PRESET in "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/rebuilt-presets"/*; do ha preset validate --source "$NEW_PRESET" --json ha preset install --source "$NEW_PRESET" --json done ha preset audit --vertical software/coding --json ``` Continue only when every validation reports `"valid": true` and the audit shows no blocked package. `preset audit --json` answers about the vertical as a whole — a count of packages and a count of issues — not one row per package. So it tells you _whether_ something is blocked, not _which_ package it is. The per-package verdict is the `validate` output in the loop above; if the audit reports issues, read back the validations rather than looking for a package list in the audit receipt that is not there. Then take the old packages out of the copy being imported — the archived original still has them: ```bash mv "$WORK_SOURCE/harness/presets" "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/legacy-presets-rebuilt" ``` Re-run the dry-run from section 4 with `"${RESOLVE_ARGS[@]}"`. The `presets/**` row must be gone. ## 7. Handle historical-format observations ```bash grep -E '^- (ACCEPT|SKIP) ' "$DRY_RUN" ``` Show every observation to the user. `SKIP` rows are legacy-parser diagnostics; they are not subtracted from the projection oracle and do not independently block a reconciled import. `ACCEPT schedule_definition_facet_mismatch` with `treatment=accepted_truth_gap` is the one known schedule declaration-claim variant. The disposable oracle uses the definition facet from the event while the original claim blob stays untouched in the forensic archive. Confirm the warning has that exact code and treatment, then continue; do not rewrite it. For `unsupported_legacy_event`, preserve the source and collect the exact event path, schema, and nested parser error. For `migration_projection_rebuild_failed`, collect the nested cause and identify any missing or corrupt committed blob. Stop and report either case as a missing compatibility fixture. Do not hand-edit canonical event bytes to get past it. A `migration_projection_oracle_cut_mismatch` means source writers were not frozen or a local projection is stale: stop the writers, remove or regenerate that local cache, and dry-run again. If a dry-run reports reconciliation `FAIL` or `invalid_write_plan`, do not apply. Keep the full receipt and report the named kind/event. Apply is allowed only after dry-run exits zero and proves every planned event against the current write contract. ## 8. Recreate the destination, then apply once Source repairs must be replayed into a target that never saw the broken data. ```bash cd "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK" mv "$TARGET_REPO" "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/preview-repository" mkdir -p "$TARGET_REPO" && cd "$TARGET_REPO" git init -q . && git commit -q --allow-empty -m "base" ha init --repo-id --person-id --display-name '' for NEW_PRESET in "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/rebuilt-presets"/*; do ha preset install --source "$NEW_PRESET" --json; done ha migrate import --source "$WORK_SOURCE" "${RESOLVE_ARGS[@]}" --dry-run; echo "exit=$?" ``` Apply only when that exits zero, all five reconciliation rows pass, authored coverage has no `required`, and every accepted historical observation has been reviewed. A source rebuilt without `task.sqlite` must say `Oracle: rebuilt-source`. **Run apply detached, and poll it.** It prints **nothing at all** until it finishes, so a foreground run is indistinguishable from a hang and any caller with a command timeout will kill it partway. That has already happened once: an agent harness terminated a real apply at around the 60-minute mark, and a half-imported target is not recoverable — step 8 has to start over from `ha init`. **Budget from the event count, not from the worst case.** Apply costs roughly 200 ms per event and scales with the count, not with the byte size: a 963-event / 257 MB ledger finished in **211 seconds**, while a 21,000-event ledger took **1h22m**. Multiply before you plan around it; treating every migration as an overnight job over-provisions a small one by more than an order of magnitude. **Have the detached run record its own exit code.** A background process that has already been reaped cannot be asked for its status from another shell — and "apply exited zero" is a line in the "Done when" list, so an unrecoverable exit code means the migration cannot be signed off. Write it to a file as the process ends: ```bash cat > "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply.sh" <<'EOF' #!/bin/sh node "$HA_ENTRY" migrate import --source "$WORK_SOURCE" "$@" echo "exit=$?" > "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply-exit.txt" EOF chmod +x "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply.sh" cd "$TARGET_REPO" nohup "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply.sh" "${RESOLVE_ARGS[@]}" \ > "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply.log" 2>&1 & echo "apply pid=$!" ``` The wrapper is a file rather than an inline `sh -c` because `RESOLVE_ARGS` is a shell array and does not survive being flattened into a quoted string. It reads `HA_ENTRY`, `WORK_SOURCE`, `HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK` and `HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT` from the environment, so they must be **exported** — which they are, if you followed the export blocks above. Note also `node "$HA_ENTRY"` rather than `ha`: the shell function from step 1 does not exist inside `nohup`. Poll for the exit file, not for the pid — the file is what survives: ```bash if [ -f "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply-exit.txt" ]; then cat "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply-exit.txt"; tail -20 "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/apply.log" else echo "still running" fi ``` While it runs, `du -sh "$TARGET_REPO/harness"` and the commit count in `$TARGET_REPO/harness` both climb — that is the only live progress signal there is. A stalled apply shows neither growing for many minutes. Once it has finished, confirm the source was never written to: ```bash export SOURCE_SHA_AFTER="$(COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar -cf - --exclude='harness/.git' -C "$ARCHIVE_SOURCE" harness | shasum -a 256 | awk '{print $1}')" test "$SOURCE_SHA_BEFORE" = "$SOURCE_SHA_AFTER" && echo "source ledger untouched" ``` The `--exclude` must match step 2's exactly. Digesting different sets on the two sides guarantees a mismatch and tells you nothing. If apply exits nonzero, keep its output, move the target aside, and restart from a fresh `ha init`. **Never re-run apply against a partially imported target.** **Then pack the new ledger's git repository.** The importer commits once per event and never packs, so a freshly imported ledger is all loose objects — the 21,000-event migration produced **218,213 loose objects, zero packs, and an 18 GB `.git`** for about 850 MB of actual content. ```bash git -C "$TARGET_REPO/harness" gc --aggressive --prune=now du -sh "$TARGET_REPO/harness/.git" "$TARGET_REPO/harness" git -C "$TARGET_REPO/harness" rev-list --count HEAD git -C "$TARGET_REPO/harness" fsck --no-progress ``` That run took the same ledger from 18 GB to a 181 MB `.git` in a single pack, with the commit count unchanged and `fsck` clean. The effect holds at small scale with the same shape and a far smaller bill: a 963-event ledger went from **104 MB / 10,332 loose objects / 0 packs to 19 MB / 0 loose / 1 pack in about 7 seconds**, again with the commit count unchanged and `fsck` clean. Expect seconds on a small ledger, not the long wait the 18 GB figure suggests. Do this before step 9 either way — it is the difference between handing the user a 19 GB directory and a 862 MB one, and after landing the daemon holds the repository. Now execute the merge column recorded in step 5. `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/preview-repository` still holds the previous destination, and `$WORK_SOURCE` still holds the old files, so both sides remain readable: ```bash diff -u "$TARGET_REPO/harness/adr/README.md" "$WORK_SOURCE/harness/adr/README.md" | head -40 ``` For each row, edit the destination file to carry the project-specific content forward. Keep the current file's structure and add to it — do not paste the old file over it, which would undo the resolution that was just applied. Show the user the resulting diff. This is the last write of the migration. ## 9. Land the ledger `$TARGET_REPO/harness` is a **standalone git repository** — its own `.git`, its own history, its own remote. That is true in both placements below, and it is the thing that must not be lost: a ledger is never a subdirectory of the project's repository. One ledger, mirrored by the checkouts that use it. **Local — the default.** The ledger lives inside the project directory as `/harness`, a repository of its own, and the project ignores it. This is the shape `ha init` produces for a new project and the shape previous generations used. Choose it unless the user says otherwise. **Central.** The ledger lives outside any project, in a directory of its own, and is registered by absolute path. Choose it when the user tells you the ledger is shared — several machines mirroring one authoritative copy. ### First: the machine needs a current-generation CLI that outlives this work directory **Read this before touching the destination.** Everything up to here ran from `$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK`, which is disposable. The landed ledger is not: it needs a daemon serving it from here on, and **that daemon must be the current generation** — the whole reason for this migration is that the machine's installed `ha` belongs to the previous one, and a previous-generation daemon cannot serve a current-format ledger. Check what the machine actually has — **do not assume it has nothing.** A current-generation `ha` is often already installed, built from this repository rather than from a registry: ```bash env -u HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT command ha --version; echo "exit=$?" ``` A current-generation CLI prints a version and exits `0`. A previous-generation one rejects the flag outright and exits nonzero: ``` {"ok":false,"command":"parse","error":{"code":"unknown_option", "hint":"Unknown option '--version' for 'ha'. Did you mean '--json'?"}} ``` **Route on whether the flag is accepted, never on the number it prints.** The version string is `0.1.0` and carries no generation marker, so it is the same on a current-generation global install and on the source checkout you have been running all along — seeing `0.1.0` twice tells you nothing about which build is which. Acceptance of `--version` is the whole signal; the number is noise. **If the flag is accepted, use that installation** and skip to the `ha_serving` block below. Running the migration checkout would also work, but handing the user a command they already have beats handing them a checkout to maintain. **If it rejects**, the installed CLI cannot serve what you are about to land, and there is nothing to `npm install`: `@harness-anything/cli` is not published (`npm view` returns 404). Two workable answers, in order of preference: ```bash # preferred — build the checkout and install it on PATH, so `ha` just works cd "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/ha-src/packages/cli" && npm run build && npm install -g . command ha --version # fallback — keep a durable checkout and invoke it by path export HA_HOME="$HOME/.harness-cli-src" # anywhere durable; not $HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK cp -R "$HARNESS_MIGRATION_WORK/ha-src" "$HA_HOME" export HA_ENTRY="$HA_HOME/packages/cli/src/index.ts" node "$HA_ENTRY" --version ``` The package's `bin` points into `dist/`, which a fresh clone does not contain — that is why the global install needs an explicit `npm run build` first, and why the skill has been running the TypeScript entry point directly up to now. A build is all that is missing; it is not an unavailable artifact. Whichever branch you took, **name the result once and use it for the rest of step 9**, so the serving CLI and the throwaway migration entry point never get confused for each other: ```bash ha_serving() { command ha "$@"; } # the machine's ha is current-generation # ha_serving() { node "$HA_ENTRY" "$@"; } # ...or the durable checkout instead ha_serving --version ``` Hand the user that same invocation — the exact command that now drives this ledger — and say plainly whether it replaces their existing `ha`. Do not leave them to discover it the first time `ha task list` fails. Note also that `env -u HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT ha …` below resolves `ha` from `PATH`, which skips any shell function or alias the user has defined around it. If theirs injects flags — `--actor`, a default `--root` — those are silently dropped. This is not hypothetical: a real machine defines `ha` as a function wrapping `command ha --actor human:`, so commands run through `env` are attributed to a different actor than the same commands typed by hand. Run `type ha` before relying on either form, and write `command ha` when you mean the binary. The procedure below is the same for both placements. Only `LEDGER_HOME` differs. ```bash # local (default) — the project directory the user is migrating export LEDGER_HOME="/absolute/path/to/the/project" # central — a directory of its own, outside every project # export LEDGER_HOME="/absolute/path/the/user/chooses" cd "$LEDGER_HOME" # If the machine's own daemon already serves a ledger here, release it FIRST -- see below. mv harness "harness.pre-migration-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)" # superseded, not disposable cp -R "$TARGET_REPO/harness" ./harness ``` **If the destination is already a live Harness workspace, release it before the `mv`, not after.** Everything up to here ran against the throwaway migration daemon; the ledger you are replacing belongs to the machine's own daemon, which is a different registry and is holding an open cell and a writer lock on the directory you are about to move. Release it first, with `HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT` **unset** so the commands reach that daemon rather than the migration one: ```bash env -u HARNESS_DAEMON_USER_ROOT command ha daemon repo unregister --repo-id ``` The daemon keeps running and keeps serving its other repositories; only this ledger is released, which you can confirm by the writer lock next to it disappearing. Then do the `mv` and `cp` above. A destination with no Harness yet has nothing to release, and this step is skipped. **Move the old ledger aside; do not delete it.** The step 2 archive holds its content, but the directory is also a git repository with its own history, and this is the one moment in the migration where a mistake is discovered late. The same reasoning already governs the old runtime directory below: report it, hand over the path, and let the user delete it when they are satisfied. A rename is reversible in one command; `rm -rf` against a directory the skill does not own is not. In a project, isolate the ledger from the project's own repository before committing anything. `ha init` does this on a fresh project, but registering an existing ledger does not, so do it here: ```bash for rule in '/harness/' '/.harness/' '/harness.pre-migration-*/'; do grep -qxF "$rule" .gitignore 2>/dev/null || printf '%s\n' "$rule" >> .gitignore done git rm -r -q --cached --ignore-unmatch -- harness .harness ``` **The third rule is load-bearing, and so is checking the rules one at a time.** The `mv` above leaves a `harness.pre-migration-/` directory sitting in the project root, and `/harness/` does not match it — it matches only a directory named exactly `harness`. Without its own rule that directory …(truncated)