Side by side with what is live right now. Nothing here has been published. This is for you to read, mark up, and approve or reject.
Verified bug, unrelated to the wording. The live form is missing question 5. It goes 1, 2, 3, 4, then jumps straight to 6. So the form shows 11 questions while the header says all 12 are required.
Brian caught this in his harness PDF and I confirmed it against the live form: the source file has all 12 items, so the form was built from an older version and never rebuilt. Anyone who filled it out was shown 11 items.
The rule I applied to every item. Two kinds of jargon, opposite treatment.
Words worth teaching (harness, skill, hook) stay, and get defined the first time they appear. Internal shorthand that teaches nothing (tools/backup, BC, claude-stats, html-it, Fable/Opus/Sonnet) gets deleted or translated.
Titles are now plain-English outcomes with zero jargon. Definitions live in the help text under each title, which is where the form already puts them.
This is the first thing anyone reads. Brian's PDF recommends swapping it for the engine-and-car line plus the new-hire paragraph.
Level 2 = you build your own harness on top of Claude. Harness = anything we build on top of Claude that we can take with us to any AI. (Brian, 8/4)
Mark each item once it is true for you. Same format as your Level 1 check. All 12 are required for Level 2. Not yet is fine to submit; it just shows me where to help.
Level 2 means you build your own harness.
A harness is everything you build around the AI so it does your job the way you would do it. The AI is the engine. The harness is the car.
Claude is the smartest new hire you have ever met, showing up with no laptop, no logins, no SOPs, and nobody checking their work. The harness is all the setup that makes that hire useful.
We all have the same Claude. The harness is the only part that is actually ours.
Read the full explainer first (3 minutes). Then mark each item once it is true for you. All 12 are required. "Not yet" is fine to submit, it just shows me where to help.
Your question: replace the header, or add a 13th question asking people to confirm they understand it?
I would replace the header and link the PDF, but not add the checkbox. Every other item on this form is a verifiable action a manager can check. "I understand the term harness" is self-reported and unverifiable, so it would be the one item on the list that means nothing, and it dilutes the other 12.
If you want a forcing function instead, the honest version is a question that makes someone use the word: "In one sentence, what is the harness you are building for your role?" That is a free-text question, it proves comprehension for real, and it doubles as the input for their item 10 scope. It also tells you instantly who did not read it.
Left is live today, verbatim. Right is proposed. Item 8 is untouched and waiting on your meeting with Brian.
1. Install EG Skills
One install covers: token optimizer, claude-stats, weekly-log, skills-tracker, html-it, skill-builder. Logs status to the Claude Stats spreadsheet automatically.
1. Install the EG Skills pack
A skill is a set of instructions Claude saves and reuses, like an SOP it can follow on its own. This one install gives you the whole starter set the team shares. It reports your status to the team spreadsheet on its own, so there is nothing for you to send me.
2. Google Drive auto-backup, nightly
Ships inside EG Skills (tools/backup). Manager check: dated backup folders exist in your Drive.
2. Your setup backs itself up to Google Drive every night
Comes with the EG Skills pack, so there is nothing extra to install. How you know it worked: open your Google Drive and you will see a folder with last night's date on it.
3. GitHub account + contribute one PR
Sign up with Google SSO. Submit one pull request (a PR: a proposed change to a shared tool), to a team tool or one of your own.
3. Get a GitHub account and suggest one change to a shared tool
GitHub is where the team's shared tools live. Sign up using your work Google account, the same one-click login you use for Gmail. Then suggest one change to a tool. The industry calls that a pull request, or PR. Someone reviews it before anything goes live, so you cannot break anything.
4. Rate-and-improve on your top 10 skills and projects
Run it on your top 10 skills or projects. Also how you learn: give it a YouTube video, newsletter, X post, or podcast and it tells you what's worth adding to your setup.
4. Run rate-and-improve on your 10 most-used skills and projects
Rate-and-improve scores your work out of 10 and tells you exactly what to fix. Point it at the things you use most. It also works on a YouTube video, newsletter, X post, or podcast, and tells you what from it is worth adding to your own setup.
Nothing. The live form skips from question 4 to question 6. This item was never shown to anyone. The wording below is what exists in the source file but was never published.
5. Skill suggester installed — Reads your recent work and suggests the next skill worth building and posts it on your basecamp. Just tell it what BC to post it on and what column.
5. Turn on the skill suggester
It looks at what you have been working on and suggests the next thing worth automating. It posts that suggestion straight to your Basecamp board as a card. You just tell it which board and which column to use.
6. Run the CLAUDE.md optimizer
CLAUDE.md is the instruction file Claude reads every session. This keeps it lean so Claude actually follows it, and adds the usage-limit saver: Fable plans, Opus or Sonnet does the work, Fable checks the result.
6. Clean up your instruction file
CLAUDE.md is the instruction file Claude reads at the start of every conversation. It gets bloated over time, and once it does, Claude starts ignoring parts of it. This trims it back so your rules actually get followed. It also adds a setting that makes your usage limits last noticeably longer.
7. EG hard rules + hooks starter pack installed
Hooks are automatic guardrails that block Claude from breaking a rule. This installs the EG standard hard rules and hooks, including bottom-line-up-front. New hard rule = check if it needs a hook.
7. Install the team's rules, and the guardrails that enforce them
A hard rule is something Claude must always do or never do. A hook is the guardrail that actually blocks it, instead of hoping Claude remembers. This installs the team's standard set, including always leading with the bottom line. Rule of thumb: every time you write a new hard rule, ask whether it needs a hook behind it.
8. Separate browser profile just for Claude
Use browser automation when there's no API or MCP: QC updates made to our websites, scrape other sites. Teach it how to log in for you because LastPass normally pre-fills your login info. Teach your computer: just click on Continue, and add that to either the skill or to the CLAUDE.md file as a hard rule.
Left exactly as-is per your instruction. Brian's Aug 10 note says he does not let Claude log in for him and does not give it LastPass access, which is the opposite of what this item currently asks for. The wording depends on which model becomes the EG standard, so rewriting it now would be wasted work.
For the meeting: this item also has the most undefined jargon on the form. API, MCP, QC, and scrape all appear with no explanation. MCP in particular is used nowhere else on the form and defined nowhere at all.
9. Automate all of your reports
Your recurring reports run themselves. No copying numbers between tools by hand. Proof: 1 skill for each report you update.
9. Every report you own on a schedule runs itself
No more copying numbers from one tool into another by hand. How you know it worked: there is one skill for every report you update on a regular schedule.
10. Build one tool useful to yourself, approved by your department manager
You scope out what you want to build and present it to your manager for approval.
10. Build one tool that makes your own job easier, with your manager's OK first
Write it down in one short paragraph before you build: what it does, who uses it, and how you will know it worked. Show that to your manager and get a yes.
11. Dead-automation watchdog on your scheduled jobs
Watches your scheduled jobs. When one breaks it tries to fix itself first; you only get a Slack alert when it can't, with buttons to tap to fix.
11. Something watches your automations and tells you when one dies
Anything you set up to run on a schedule will eventually break, usually quietly. This checks on them for you. When one breaks it tries to fix itself first. You only hear about it in Slack when it cannot, and the message comes with buttons to tap.
12. Train 1 person to Level 1
Help one teammate finish their L1 checklist. Teaching it is how you prove you own it.
12. Walk one teammate all the way through Level 1
Pick one person and stay with them until their Level 1 checklist is finished. Teaching it is how you prove you actually own it.
Every deletion below is shorthand that meant nothing to someone eight weeks into this.
| Cut | Was in | Replaced with |
|---|---|---|
| token optimizer, claude-stats, html-it, skill-builder | Item 1 | What a skill actually is, before naming any |
| tools/backup | Item 2 | Nothing. It is a file path, and nobody needs it |
| Google SSO | Item 3 | "your work Google account, the same one-click login you use for Gmail" |
| Fable / Opus / Sonnet | Item 6 | "makes your usage limits last noticeably longer" |
| BC | Item 5 | "Basecamp board" |
| Manager check: / Proof: | Items 2, 9 | "How you know it worked", same phrase every time |
Kept on purpose: harness, skill, hook, pull request. These are the shared vocabulary. Each one is now defined the first time it appears rather than assumed.
Worth putting somewhere people see it more than once. This is verbatim from his page.
"A harness is everything you build around the AI so it does your job the way you would do it. The AI is the engine, the harness is the car.
Claude is the smartest new hire you have ever met, showing up with no laptop, no logins, no SOPs, and nobody checking their work. The harness is all the setup that makes that hire useful.
We all have the same Claude. The harness is the only part that is actually ours."
Nothing has been published. Four decisions, then I can make the changes in one pass.
One thing to decide before republishing. Rebuilding the form deletes and recreates every question. I have not checked whether that detaches the existing responses from the linked sheet. I will confirm that before touching anything live, because 39 people have already answered.