Harness Open Source — End-to-End Developer Platform

What it is

Harness Open Source (formerly Gitness) is a developer platform that combines Git repository hosting, CI/CD pipeline execution, cloud development environments, and an artifact registry in a single lightweight binary. It provides the core GitHub/GitLab experience -- pull requests, code review, webhooks, Docker-based CI -- on your own infrastructure.

The platform targets teams that want source control and CI/CD without the operational complexity of GitLab self-managed or the vendor lock-in of hosted platforms. It runs as a single Docker container or binary.

How it saves time or tokens

Instead of stitching together separate tools for Git hosting, CI runners, container registry, and dev environments, Harness Open Source provides all four in one deployment. This eliminates integration overhead, reduces infrastructure costs, and simplifies onboarding for new team members.

Pipeline definitions use YAML and execute in Docker containers, so CI/CD configuration is portable and does not depend on platform-specific syntax.

How to use

1. Start Harness Open Source with Docker:

docker run -d \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -v harness:/data \
  --name harness \
  --restart always \
  harness/harness

1. Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser and create your account.

1. Create a project and push your first repository:

git remote add harness http://localhost:3000/git/<your-project>/<repo>.git
git push harness main

Example

A CI pipeline definition in .harness/pipeline.yaml:

kind: pipeline
spec:
  stages:
    - type: ci
      spec:
        steps:
          - name: test
            type: run
            spec:
              container: golang:1.22
              script: |
                go test ./...
          - name: build
            type: run
            spec:
              container: golang:1.22
              script: |
                go build -o app .
          - name: docker
            type: plugin
            spec:
              name: docker
              inputs:
                repo: registry.example.com/myapp
                tags: latest

Related on TokRepo

• DevOps Tools -- CI/CD, deployment, and infrastructure automation
• Self-Hosted Tools -- Tools you can run on your own infrastructure

Common pitfalls

• Harness Open Source is a different product from Harness commercial CI/CD. Plugin and step syntax may differ between the two. Always refer to the open source documentation.
• The single-binary architecture means all services share the same process. For high-availability production deployments, consider running multiple instances behind a load balancer.
• Artifact registry supports OCI images and Helm charts. Other artifact types (npm, Maven) may not be supported yet.