An operator running many projects at once needs each one wired the same way: the same checks, the same hook entry point, the same place to keep project-wide config. Set that up by hand and it drifts. One project gets a rule the others miss, a config key falls out of date, a hook points at a binary that has moved. The drift stays invisible until a session leans on it.

ae-sys is the front door that removes the hand work. One command writes a project's config, its hook router, and its Claude Code settings, then installs and reports on the two sibling binaries it drives: hux, the checker that holds every edit to shape, and ae-handover, the continuity tool that carries state across sessions. One config per project root governs all three. The harness becomes something a project inherits, not something rebuilt each time.

ae-sys is one binary in a Rust workspace of three. Each installs and upgrades on its own; a single config file at the project root drives all three, and a single hook router is the one entry point for every lifecycle event. ae-sys is the front door of the set: it installs the others, migrates legacy config, and reports health across the family.

The harness has to run in two places: a desktop with the full toolchain, and Anthropic's remote runtime, where the binaries do not exist. The router ae-sys installs reads the environment and decides. On the desktop it hands the event to the native executor; in the remote runtime it falls back to a small per-event bash subset covering the core lifecycle. Either way the verdict comes back in one shape, so the model sees a single contract on both grounds.

ae-sys is the management surface for the harness: an ordered set of commands that take a project from bare to governed and hold it there. The sequence runs from first setup through health checks, and auto-setup folds it into the one hook Claude Code fires on a fresh project.