diff --git a/nix/templates/harness-base.nix b/nix/templates/harness-base.nix
index 72c814c..5a971e8 100644
--- a/nix/templates/harness-base.nix
+++ b/nix/templates/harness-base.nix
@@ -268,6 +268,11 @@
       # tea-login oneshot below if /state/forge-token is present, so
       # claude can `tea repos create`, `tea pulls create`, etc.
       tea
+      # jq: JSON processing in shell — useful for parsing API responses,
+      # forge REST calls, sqlite output, etc.
+      jq
+      # curl: HTTP client for forge REST API and other web requests.
+      curl
     ];
 
     # One-shot: configure tea with the agent's forge token if