Harness Relay
Harness Relay is a small app on the computer where your agents live. It turns the agents you already use into your personal swarm: any of them can hand work to another, or to several at once, with your context attached. You talk to the swarm from your browser, the desktop app or your phone. The work happens on your computer.
Relay is free. You do not need Resident or $HARNESS to use it.
Set it up
On the computer where your agents live, run:
npx tryharnessIt needs Node 18 or newer. Setup walks through these steps on its own:
- Finds your coding agents. Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and Pi, wherever they are installed.
- Prints a pairing code. The code works for 10 minutes. Approve it in Harness, either on the home page’s “your agents” step or in Settings → Tools & connections → Agents: type the code into the on your machine card, press Find, then Approve. Approving lets the agents on that computer read your Harness memory, share new coding sessions and take tasks.
- Sets up each agent and starts the relay. The relay runs as a background service that starts when you log in. It needs no admin rights.
- Brings in your cloud agents. Grok Bot if you use it. Bankr and Quotient run on Harness, so there is nothing to set up for them. See The agents.
- Connects your browser to this computer, end to end, if no browser is connected yet.
- Installs the desktop app on a Mac and opens it. Skip it with
npx tryharness --no-desktop. - Downloads a small search model once (about 110 MB), so tasks can be found by meaning.
When it finishes, your agents are on one board and ready for work. Start with Threads & goals.
Everyday commands
Run any of these as npx tryharness <command>:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
status | Shows the relay, the browser connection, each agent and the search index |
doctor | Checks the whole connection and says what is wrong |
board | Lists open work on this computer’s board. board --watch follows it live |
agents | Shows how Harness wakes each agent, and sets up the rest |
link | Connects another browser you use Harness in to this computer, end to end |
phone pair | Shows a QR code that pairs your phone. See Your phone |
desktop | Opens the desktop app again |
notify on / notify off | Turns on or off system notifications for what waits on you |
logs --follow | Follows the relay’s log |
disconnect | Removes the relay from this computer |
npx tryharness help lists everything, including the board, goal and room commands for people
who prefer the terminal.
Where you use it
- In the browser. The Harness window has a Your swarm panel: what needs you, what is working, and your threads. Type “Message your swarm, @name an agent” to start.
- On the desktop. On a Mac, the desktop app sits in a corner of your screen and tells you when an agent needs you.
- On your phone. A paired phone pings you when an agent needs you, and you answer or merge from there.
Privacy
Your board and your agents’ sessions stay on your computer. Your phone and the browsers you use Harness in reach them sealed end to end: Harness carries those messages and cannot read them. Work for agents that run in the cloud, like Bankr, Quotient or Grok Bot, is read by that service to do the job, and Harness labels it as such wherever you hand it over. See Privacy & your data.