Yaowei ZhengandClaude Opus 4.8
45bfae6e94
Initial import of all source code, config, and README assets: the packages workspace (cli, core, server, web, docs, landing, skills), build scripts, tooling config, and CI workflows. Includes the data-layout revision made on this branch: the local data root defaults to ~/.penguin/data (PENGUIN_HOME still overrides; the installer keeps its binaries in ~/.penguin), and every Agent lives under <project>/agents/<agent>/ — path helpers, the three agent-enumeration scans, the system prompt, built-in Skills, tests and docs all follow the new layout. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018ihk8iQuo3kv2aPjAYEPuR
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title, date, category, excerpt
| title | date | category | excerpt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing PenguinHarness: agents that build agents | 2026-07-17 | news | The first open-source harness with recursive self-improvement is here — lightweight, efficient and secure infrastructure covering everything from automatic agent construction to continuous self-evolution. |
Today we are releasing PenguinHarness — an open-source harness built for constructing and evolving agents. Its purpose fits in one line:
Efficient Self-Improving Harness for Everyone.
Why PenguinHarness
Over the past year the way agent applications are built has been converging fast: what really decides quality is not a heavyweight framework but a simple, reliable, observable harness. PenguinHarness is rebuilt from the ground up — no dependency on any agent framework, a fully open-source self-developed kernel — and it brings three things to the open-source world first:
- Simplest Is the Best: a deliberately minimal toolset over clean low-level interfaces — fewer tool calls, fewer Tokens, complex tasks done efficiently.
- Harness for Building Agents: with the PenguinHarness SDK, an Agent builds complete Agent applications for you, autonomously, from scratch.
- Harness for Recursive Self-Improvement: with PenguinHarness Skills, an Agent evaluates and optimizes itself, improving recursively over time.
For the latter two, PenguinHarness is the first open-source implementation in the industry.
Same model, equal or better quality, lower cost
All runs use the same DeepSeek V4 Pro model, head-to-head against Claude Code and OpenAI Codex on two suites (per-run means below).
Complex data analysis (15 tasks, single run):
| Framework | Model | Accuracy (%) | Tokens (M) | Cost ($) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PenguinHarness | DeepSeek V4 Pro | 66.7 | 18.04 | 0.552 |
| Claude Code | DeepSeek V4 Pro | 66.7 | 21.17 | 0.641 |
| OpenAI Codex | DeepSeek V4 Pro | 46.7 | 13.36 | 0.427 |
Coding tasks (40 tasks × 2 runs averaged, thinking high, 30 min per-case timeout, CNY pricing converted at $1 = ¥7):
| Framework | Model | Accuracy (%) | Tokens (M) | Cost ($) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PenguinHarness | DeepSeek V4 Pro | 50.00 | 2.10 | 0.041 |
| Claude Code | DeepSeek V4 Pro | 48.75 | 2.00 | 0.048 |
| OpenAI Codex | DeepSeek V4 Pro | 42.50 | 2.65 | 0.043 |
On the data-analysis suite PenguinHarness ties Claude Code on accuracy and clearly beats OpenAI Codex while using 14.8% fewer Tokens at 13.8% lower cost; on the coding suite it scores highest of the three at the lowest per-run cost.
Evolution within bounds, security first
The biggest worry about self-improvement is losing control. PenguinHarness answers with a contract — CONTRACT.md:
- Evolution is strictly confined to Workspace and Skills; the harness core security boundary is never modified.
- Tool calls run only after approval, and every approval is audited.
- Risky changes snapshot first — every step of evolution can be rolled back.
- Fully open source and locally deployable: data never leaves your machine, meeting enterprise security requirements.
Get started now
Install with one command (Linux / macOS, x64 / arm64, bundled Node runtime):
curl -fsSL https://github.com/Prism-Shadow/penguin-harness/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh
Configure a model (DeepSeek as an example), run your first task, or open the desktop-grade web interface with penguin web:
penguin config model add --model-id deepseek-v4-pro --api-key sk-your-key --set-default
penguin run --approve allow-all --message "Analyze data.csv and summarize quarterly sales"
penguin web
PenguinHarness supports 1000+ online and local models and multi-agent collaborative evolution, and runs on as little as a single CPU. Through continuous evolution it makes complex AI development ever simpler — a more efficient, more reliable, lower-hallucination and lower-cost Agent productivity engine.
Follow us on GitHub and open your first issue.