Ynh Team Setup

---
name: ynh-team-setup
description: Guide graduation from a personal harness to a team setup with delegation. Creates a team harness that delegates to personal harnesses.
---

# Team Harness Setup

You are guiding a user through creating a team harness that delegates to personal harnesses. This is the "graduation" from individual use to team-wide adoption.

## Before you start

Read these references to understand delegation and Git URL formats:

1. Read `references/delegation.md` for `delegates_to` syntax, Git URL formats, auth, vendor support, and the team harness shape

It ships with this skill, so it is readable wherever the skill is installed.
Author the new harness as `.agents/harness/plugin.json`, the format below. The ynh
repository is not present in a user's project — do not send them looking for
fixtures in it.

## Step 1: Understand their current setup

Ask the user:
- Do they already have a harness? What's it called?
- Is it in a Git repo already, or just local?
- What does their team look like? (size, shared standards, tooling)

## Step 2: Explain the delegation model

Explain how ynh delegation works (see `references/delegation.md`):

**Delegation** means a team harness knows about personal harnesses. When someone runs the team harness and asks for something that a personal harness handles, the AI vendor can delegate to it as a subagent.

Two modes of use:
- **Delegation for quick tasks**: Run `team-dev "deploy checklist"` and it delegates to the right specialist
- **Dedicated sessions for deep work**: Run `david` directly when you need your full personal context

The team harness bundles shared standards (rules, skills) while individual harnesses carry personal preferences.

## Step 3: Team harness location

Ask where to create the team harness. Options:
- A new Git repo (recommended for teams - everyone installs from the URL)
- A local directory (fine for testing first)

Suggest a name like `team-dev` or `<company>-dev`.

## Step 4: Team artifacts

Ask what shared artifacts the team needs:
- **Rules** - Coding standards, review checklist, testing requirements
- **Skills** - Shared workflows (deploy, review, incident response)
- **Agents** - Team specialists (security reviewer, architecture advisor)
- **Commands** - Common operations (CI checks, deploy)

They might also want to pull from external repos via `includes`.

## Step 5: Generate the team harness

Create the team harness directory.

`.agents/harness/plugin.json`:

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://eyelock.github.io/ynh/schema/plugin.schema.json",
  "name": "<team-name>",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "description": "<team description>",
  "default_vendor": "<vendor>",
  "delegates_to": [
    {"git": "<personal-persona-git-url>"}
  ]
}
```

You can also add delegates from the CLI instead of editing the manifest, which
is easier once the harness exists:

```bash
ynh delegate add <harness> github.com/user/harness --ref v1.2.0
```

`--ref` pins to a tag, branch or commit and `--path` selects a subdirectory in a
monorepo. **Pin third-party delegates.** A delegate is a harness whose
instructions run inside your agent, so tracking a branch means whoever can push
to that repo changes how your assistant behaves on the next run.

**Git URL format for delegates_to** - see `references/delegation.md` for the three formats:
- Shorthand: `github.com/user/harness` (expands to SSH)
- Full SSH: `git@github.com:user/harness.git`
- Full HTTPS: `https://github.com/user/harness.git`

If the personal harness isn't in Git yet, explain they'll need to push it first for delegation to work. Show them how:

```bash
cd <harness-dir>
git init && git add . && git commit -m "Initial harness"
# Push to their Git hosting
```

Generate any shared artifacts they requested (rules, skills, etc.) following standard formats (skills need `SKILL.md` with frontmatter, agents need markdown with frontmatter, rules and commands are plain markdown).

## Step 6: Installation for the team

Show the team installation flow:

```bash
# Team member installs the team harness
ynh install <team-harness-git-url>
team-dev                    # interactive session with team config

# They can also install their own personal harness
ynh install <personal-persona-git-url>
david                       # personal session
```

Explain the vendor standardization: setting `default_vendor` in `.agents/harness/plugin.json` ensures everyone uses the same AI vendor, but individuals can override with `-v`.

## Step 7: Auth considerations

If any repos are private, explain the auth model (see `references/delegation.md`). Key points:
- SSH URLs (`git@github.com:...`) recommended for private repos
- ynh delegates to the local `git` binary - if `git clone` works, ynh works
- Team members each need their own SSH keys / credentials configured

## Step 8: Next steps

After the team harness is working:

1. **Version with Git tags** - Use `ref: v1.0.0` in includes for stable references
2. **Monorepo support** - If the org has a monorepo with AI config, use the `path` field in `delegates_to` (see `references/delegation.md`).
3. **Multiple teams** - Each team can have their own harness that delegates to specialists. Harnesses compose infinitely.