Create environment

Skill harness/harness-skills/skills/create-environment

A collection of structured AI agent skills that enable Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and other AI coding assistants to create, operate, debug, and govern Harness CI/CD workflows through natural language.

Install

npx -y skills add harness/harness-skills --skill create-environment

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What its author says it does

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Generate Harness Environment YAML for deployment targets and create via MCP. Supports PreProduction and Production types with environment variables, manifest overrides, and multi-environment setup (dev, staging, prod). Use when asked to create an environment, set up staging, configure production, define deployment targets, or manage environment overrides. Trigger phrases: create environment, deployment environment, setup dev, setup staging, setup production, environment variables, environment overrides.

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SKILL.md

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Create Environment

Generate Harness Environment YAML and push to Harness via MCP.

Instructions

Determine environment type - PreProduction for dev/staging/QA, Production for live environments
Define variables and overrides - Environment-specific config values and manifest overrides
Generate YAML using the structure below
Create via MCP using harness_create with resource_type environment

Environment Structure

environment:
  name: Staging
  identifier: staging
  orgIdentifier: default
  projectIdentifier: my_project
  type: PreProduction       # PreProduction or Production
  tags:
    tier: staging
  variables:
    - name: domain
      type: String
      value: staging.myapp.com
    - name: replicas
      type: Number
      value: "2"
    - name: db_password
      type: Secret
      value: <+secrets.getValue("staging_db_password")>
  overrides:
    manifests:
      - manifest:
          identifier: values_override
          type: Values
          spec:
            store:
              type: Github
              spec:
                connectorRef: github
                repoName: config
                branch: main
                paths: [values-staging.yaml]

Environment Types

PreProduction - Dev, QA, staging, integration environments
Production - Live production environments (enables additional safeguards)

Multi-Environment Setup

Create dev, staging, and prod:

# Dev
environment:
  name: Development
  identifier: dev
  type: PreProduction
  variables:
    - name: domain
      type: String
      value: dev.myapp.com

# Staging
environment:
  name: Staging
  identifier: staging
  type: PreProduction
  variables:
    - name: domain
      type: String
      value: staging.myapp.com

# Production
environment:
  name: Production
  identifier: prod
  type: Production
  variables:
    - name: domain
      type: String
      value: myapp.com

Creating via MCP

Call MCP tool: harness_create
Parameters:
  resource_type: "environment"
  org_id: "<organization>"
  project_id: "<project>"
  body: <environment YAML>

List environments:

Call MCP tool: harness_list
Parameters:
  resource_type: "environment"
  org_id: "<organization>"
  project_id: "<project>"

Examples

"Create dev, staging, and prod environments" - Generate 3 environments with appropriate types
"Set up a production environment with overrides" - Production type with manifest overrides

Performance Notes

When creating multiple environments (dev/staging/prod), ensure variable values are distinct per environment.
Verify that manifest override paths exist in the referenced repository before creating.
Use Production type only for live environments — it enables additional safeguards like deployment freezes.

Troubleshooting

DUPLICATE_IDENTIFIER - Environment exists; use harness_update
Production type enables deployment freeze and approval guardrails