Problem
As the only backend engineer on Saroya AI, I needed to ship at the pace of a team without letting quality slide. Coding agents are powerful but drift without structure: they skip tests, ignore specs and pile up technical debt.
What I did
I built a harness of 14 subagents, 22 slash commands, hooks and MCP servers (Model Context Protocol, the standard for connecting models to tools) that enforce spec-first and test-first work. Every feature starts as a PRD or ADR, gets a spec, and only then enters implementation. A 169-test suite backs it.
How it works
- Subagents. 14 specialised agents, each with a defined scope and its own permitted tools.
- Slash commands. 22 commands for common workflows: spec creation, test scaffolding, deployment, cost analysis.
- Hooks. Pre-commit and post-edit hooks refuse any change that lacks a spec and tests.
- MCP servers. Custom servers connect the agents to the codebase, the documentation and the deploy pipeline.
- Practices. TDD, spec-driven development, PRDs, ADRs and RCAs.
Limitations
The harness is built for one product and one engineer. Adapting it to a team would need changes to the permission model and to conflict resolution. Source code is confidential.