Meridian Harness
You manage delivery. Sixteen specialist agents ship story by story — with a plan that survives the next chat session.
Meridian is a repo-native harness for AI-assisted development in VS Code and Cursor. Skills and specialist agents keep chat disciplined; this extension gives you the board, planning views, and dependency graphs — without leaving the IDE.
Install: Visual Studio Marketplace — search Meridian Harness, publisher colabcolibri
GitHub: https://github.com/colabcolibri/meridian
Who this is for
You use Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, or Codex to build software with AI, and you want:
- A real backlog — versions, sprints, epics, and user stories in the repo, not buried in chat history
- Control over “done” — scope and architecture written down before code; evidence when a story closes
- Specialist agents — sixteen stations (Penelope, Hephaestus, Janus, …) instead of one generic assistant
- One loop — document → plan → refine → implement → close, repeated story by story
If you only need ad-hoc prompts with no delivery structure, Meridian is probably more than you need.
What you get with this extension
| You get |
Why it matters |
| Kanban board |
Backlog, todo, in progress, done — filters by version, sprint, epic |
| Planning views |
Versions roadmap, sprints, epics, decisions log |
| Delivery & import graphs |
Story dependencies and codebase import map |
| Architecture diagrams |
Mermaid maps from docs/architecture/ with pan/zoom |
| Bundled kit installer |
One click copies .agent/ (skills, agents, validators) into your project |
| Harness upgrade |
Upgrade Harness backs up to agent-backup/ (zip) before overwriting |
| Guides in the sidebar |
Onboarding without hunting the repo |
In chat you run skills (/us-create, /project-status) or mention agents (@story-maker, @developer). The extension is for seeing and validating; chat is for creating and changing the plan.
Harness only (no extension)?
|
With extension (this) |
Kit / CLI only |
| Skills & agents in chat |
✅ |
✅ |
.agent/ + IDE adapters |
✅ (Install Harness) |
✅ (install script or copy .agent/) |
docs/ + .meridian/meridian.db |
✅ |
✅ |
Python CLI (meridian_delivery.py, export, validate) |
✅ |
✅ |
| Board & graphs |
✅ in IDE |
python3 .agent/board (HTML monitor) |
Details: Distribution · Kit README
Quick start
- Install Meridian Harness from the Marketplace → reload the window
- Open your project folder
- Meridian: Install Harness (status bar or command palette)
- In chat:
/init-meridian (new project) or /document-project (existing codebase)
- Meridian: Open Board · anytime
/status · lost? /deus-ex
Read first: Meridian: How to Use (sidebar → Meridian → Commands → Guides)
How it works
document → plan → refine → implement → close
- Document — approve scope, architecture, security in
docs/
- Plan — epics, versions, sprints, stories (
/us-create, /epic-create, …)
- Refine — story is concrete enough to build (
/us-refine)
- Implement — agent codes only when the story is
ready (/us-implement)
- Close — evidence on the story record (
/us-complete); you approve
Prefer /skill-name or @agent in chat. @deus-ex (Machina) picks the station when you are unsure.
Main commands
| Goal |
Command |
| Onboarding |
Meridian: How to Use |
| Kanban |
Meridian: Open Board |
| Planning |
Open Versions, Open Sprints, Open Epics, Open Decisions |
| Graphs |
Open Delivery Graph, Open Import Graph |
| Diagrams |
Open Architecture Diagram |
| Health check |
Meridian: Validate Project (needs python3) |
| Multi-product monorepo |
Meridian: Select Active Project |
Update the harness
- Update Meridian Harness in Extensions
- Reload window
- Meridian: Upgrade Harness in each project — backs up previous kit to
agent-backup/, refreshes .agent/, IDE adapters, and DB migrations
Requirements
- VS Code 1.85+ or Cursor
python3 for Validate Project and CLI scripts (optional for day-to-day chat)
License
PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 — free for noncommercial use. The Meridian kit (.agent/) ships inside this extension.
