Creating environments

Skill pvnarp/harness-agentic-skills/skills/harness/creating-environments

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.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add pvnarp/harness-agentic-skills --skill creating-environments

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SKILL.md

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Create Environment

What this skill uses

Harness MCP tools: harness:harness_create, harness:harness_list, harness:harness_schema, harness:harness_update Resource types: environment

Generate Harness Environment YAML and push to Harness via MCP.

Schema discovery (do this first)

Before hand-rolling YAML, fetch the live schema from the MCP. It is authoritative and saves you guessing field names. Use these calls in order:

harness:harness_schema(resource_type='environment') for top-level summary of fields and sections.
harness:harness_schema(resource_type='environment', path='<dotted.section>') to drill into a specific section.
harness:harness_schema(resource_type='environment', example_search='<keyword>') to find a working example.
harness:harness_schema(resource_type='environment', example='<example-name>') to fetch the full example YAML.

If a section is more complex than expected, drill into it with path instead of asking the user. Only fall back to authoring without schema lookup if the resource type is not in the bundled schemas list.

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

List environments:

Call MCP tool: harness: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

Related skills

Composes with (skills commonly invoked together):

Follow-ups (skills commonly chained after this one):

/creating-pipelines

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:harness_update
Production type enables deployment freeze and approval guardrails