Excel Import
To import a harness from an Excel spreadsheet, give the spreadsheet to an AI assistant that is connected to your harness.design account. It reads the spreadsheet and builds the harness for you.
What You Need
- A harness.design account. The Free plan works.
- A Claude or ChatGPT account, or another AI assistant that supports MCP. Claude’s free plan allows one custom connector, which is all you need. ChatGPT needs a paid plan to use Developer mode.
Importing a Spreadsheet
Connect Your AI Assistant
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- In harness.design, open Main Menu → Preferences → AI, and expand Claude.
- Click Add connector to Claude. Claude opens with the connector details already filled in. Confirm it.
- When Claude asks, sign in with your harness.design account and allow access.
Back in harness.design, Claude now shows as Connected in the AI preferences.
You only need to do this once. The assistant signs in as you, so it only sees your own harnesses and those shared with you. See AI Assistants for more.
Check Your Spreadsheet
There’s no template to follow. The assistant reads your spreadsheet the way a colleague would: if someone else could pick it up and understand the harness from it, the assistant can too.
Using the same name for each connector everywhere it appears helps, and if you include part numbers, the assistant assigns the real parts along with their contacts and accessories.
Attach the Spreadsheet and Send a Prompt
Start a new chat with your assistant. Attach your spreadsheet by clicking + and choosing the file, or by dragging it into the chat.
In ChatGPT, make sure the harness.design connector is turned on for the chat. Developer mode connectors are switched on per conversation from the + menu.
Then send a short prompt:
Import the attached spreadsheet into harness.design as a new harness.In some cases you may want to give the assistant more context about your spreadsheet, such as anything that isn’t obvious or doesn’t follow the usual conventions. For example:
Import the attached spreadsheet into harness.design as a new harness.
Colours use our own codes, listed on the Key sheet. Pin numbers on
the ECU connectors start at 0.You can also attach supporting documents alongside the spreadsheet, such as connector datasheets or a pinout drawing, if the assistant needs more context than the spreadsheet gives.
Review the Harness
The assistant creates the harness in your account and replies with a summary of what it built and a link to open it.
Open the harness and check it against your spreadsheet. If something isn’t right, tell the assistant in the same chat:
Make W2 yellow with a black stripe.Its changes appear in the editor live, and Undo reverses them just like your own.
If you have more than one harness open, paste a link to the harness into the chat (copy it from your browser’s address bar) so the assistant knows which one to edit.
Before asking for a large change, ask the assistant to create a revision first (Pro) so you can roll back. Assistants can make mistakes, so always check the result before you build from it.
Example
A switched work light: a power connector feeds a switch, and the switch turns on the light.
Wire List sheet
| Wire | From | From Pin | To | To Pin | Signal | Colour | Gauge (AWG) | Length (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W1 | Power | 1 | Switch | 1 | 12V | Red | 16 | 500 |
| W2 | Switch | 2 | Work Light | 1 | LIGHT | Yellow | 16 | 900 |
| W3 | Power | 2 | Work Light | 2 | GND | Black | 16 | 1000 |
Connectors sheet
| Connector | Part Number |
|---|---|
| Power | DT06-2S |
| Switch | DT06-2S |
| Work Light | DT06-2S |
Sent with the short prompt above, the assistant built this harness. It added the matching contacts and wedgelocks to the DT06-2S plugs, and worked out the bundle lengths in the Layout view from the wire lengths.