trine-eval
A modular three-agent eval-driven development harness for Claude Code. Implements Anthropic's Planner-Generator-Evaluator architecture as a portable, rubric-swappable plugin (plugins/trine-eval/), shipped alongside the trine_eval Python eval library (src/trine_eval/) that the harness builds and exercises.
How It Works
Three agents collaborate through files on disk — no shared context:
- Planner — Expands a short user prompt into a product spec with sprint decomposition
- Generator — Implements one sprint at a time, negotiating testable success criteria before writing code
- Evaluator — Adversarially tests each sprint against its contract, grading PASS/FAIL with specific evidence
The agents communicate exclusively through files in a .harness/ directory. Each sprint follows a contract→build→eval→retry cycle.
Installation
Copy or clone this repository into your Claude Code plugins directory, or install from a target project:
# From your project directory
claude /plugin install /path/to/trine-eval
Usage
1. Initialize the Harness
/harness-kickoff Build a task management API with user authentication and team workspaces
This will:
- Detect your project type (or ask you to choose)
- Create the
.harness/ directory with configuration
- Run the Planner to produce a spec and sprint plan
- Present the plan for your review
2. Run Sprints
/harness-sprint
Runs the next incomplete sprint through the full cycle:
- Generator proposes a sprint contract with testable success criteria
- Evaluator reviews the contract for testability and completeness
- Generator implements the sprint
- Evaluator tests against the contract
- If failures: Generator fixes, Evaluator re-tests (up to 3 rounds)
To target a specific sprint:
/harness-sprint 3
3. View Progress
/harness-summary
Generates a cross-sprint analysis with pass rates, trends, failure patterns, and recommendations.
Project Types and Rubrics
The harness ships with four rubrics. Set the project type during kickoff or in .harness/config.json:
| Type | Rubric | Key Dimensions |
|---|
web-app | web-app | Functionality, Visual Design, Code Quality, Robustness |
rag-system | rag-system | Retrieval Quality, Answer Faithfulness, System Robustness, Architecture |
cli-tool | cli-tool | Functionality, Usability, Error Handling, Code Quality |
api-service | api-service | Correctness, Robustness, API Design, Code Quality |
Configuration
.harness/config.json controls harness behavior:
{
"project_type": "web-app",
"rubric": "web-app",
"max_retries": 3,
"pass_threshold": {
"per_dimension_minimum": 2,
"critical_dimensions": ["functionality"],
"critical_minimum": 3
},
"contract_negotiation_rounds": 2,
"git_checkpoint": true,
"components_enabled": {
"planner": true,
"contract_negotiation": true,
"sprint_decomposition": true,
"eval_summary": true
}
}
Disabling Components
The components_enabled section lets you simplify the harness as models improve. For example, disabling contract_negotiation skips the Evaluator's contract review — the Generator's proposed criteria are accepted directly.
Phase 2 Configuration Knobs
These optional fields extend .harness/config.json with backward-compatible defaults. A config that omits them runs exactly as in Phase 1.
-
thinking.profile — one of "default", "fast", or "thorough". Default: "default", which preserves Phase-1 behavior (no override applied to agent-level adaptive-thinking effort declared in agent frontmatter). The "fast" and "thorough" values are reserved for a future override dispatcher; the default is the only path that mutates today's behavior, and it does not. Each role's effort level is declared in the agent's own frontmatter (plugins/trine-eval/agents/planner.md, plugins/trine-eval/agents/generator.md, plugins/trine-eval/agents/evaluator.md, and the harness-summary skill) — medium for routine planning and implementation, high for capability evaluation, and max for contract review and cross-sprint summary analysis.
-
batch.enabled — boolean. Default: false. When true and a sprint has at least batch.min_criteria criteria, eval verifications are submitted as a single Anthropic Batch API call (50% discount on input/output tokens, 24-hour SLA). Batch is a cost optimization, not a latency optimization. With the default false, evaluations run synchronously as in Phase 1.
-
batch.min_criteria — integer. Default: 20. Sprints with fewer criteria stay synchronous even when batch.enabled is true — the batch overhead is only worth absorbing on large suites. The criterion count compared against this threshold is the same count emitted in sprint-{NN}.tasks.json (success criteria + Should-NOT gates).
