I mean I'm looking at https://github.com/efabless/raven-picorv32 and I don't see why the harness would need 16 external gpios or the ADC / DAC / comparator pins exposed. If those are present at all, I'd hope they're just exposed as internal pins that you can connect to if you want ot.

I am with you - the more pins we have access to the better. I like having the ADC /DAC available internally - even better with a mux for more ADC channels - then we can do analog probing as well as scan chain . The chip I have mind needs 40pins so the minimum to boot up the RISC-V the better.

40 pins might be a tough order because the harness might need hard coded external SPI for its flash, so that's 6 pins. Then you'll need probably at least 4 power pins. ( 2 GND + Vio + Vcore ), and you start with 48 pins.

yep. You need a few for clocks too. I will rethink a smaller project as this is firmed up.