kensa init installs the Kensa skill set into your coding agent, led by the kensa-evals orchestrator. Ask the agent to set up or extend evals and kensa-evals walks the full lifecycle: wire the harness, confirm readiness, import evidence, inspect it into eval ideas, and generate and run evals.
Installation
kensa init detects your coding agent from project markers and writes the skills to the right place. The kensa-evals entrypoint lands at:
| Agent | Markers | Skill path |
|---|
| Claude Code | .claude/, CLAUDE.md | .claude/skills/kensa-evals/SKILL.md |
| Codex | .agents/, AGENTS.md | .agents/skills/kensa-evals/SKILL.md |
| Cursor | .cursor/ | .cursor/skills/kensa-evals/SKILL.md |
kensa-setup, kensa-inspect, and kensa-generate skills install alongside it in the same skills/ directory. If no agent is detected, kensa init prints a copyable setup prompt instead. Re-run kensa init to refresh the skills after upgrading Kensa.
Lifecycle
kensa-evals starts with state detection and routes to the first incomplete stage of the Kensa lifecycle:
setup → evidence → inspect → approval → generate → verify
- Wire the harness — connect
tests/evals/conftest.py::kensa_run(case) to the real agent, then run kensa doctor and resolve any warnings.
- Import evidence —
kensa import --from <provider> to pull bounded trace evidence.
- Inspect — mine imports into a YAML eval-idea queue under
.kensa/inspect/, read with kensa inspect list.
- Approve — mark the ideas worth keeping
status: approved, then validate with kensa inspect lint.
- Generate — materialize approved ideas as
tests/evals/test_<id>.py.
- Verify —
kensa eval runs the suite and reports verdicts.
The skill set
kensa-evals is the only entrypoint you invoke; it hands off to phase skills at each stage:
| Skill | Role |
|---|
kensa-evals | Orchestrator — detects state and routes the lifecycle from setup through verification |
kensa-setup | Connects the pytest harness to the real local agent boundary until kensa doctor passes |
kensa-inspect | Reads redacted TraceView evidence and writes a schema-validated YAML queue of eval ideas |
kensa-generate | Writes and maintains tests/evals/test_*.py files from approved ideas |
Guardrails
The skill is built to keep evals honest. kensa doctor flags harness patterns that fake a passing run — stub or mock agent classes, constructor bypasses, swallowed exceptions, hard-coded output fallbacks. The goal is evals wired to your real agent, so a green suite actually means the behavior held.Last modified on July 7, 2026
