Tag
harness engineering
6 posts tagged “harness engineering”.
Externalized coordination: the missing primitive for agent swarms
Runtime and orchestration are getting solved. Coordination is the layer that tells agents what stage they are in, what evidence is required, and whether they may proceed.
Externalized proof: confidence is cheap
The agent saying 'tested' is not evidence. Software factories need proof captured outside the model's narration.
Externalized process: optional becomes skipped
Agents skip optional steps. A harness turns vague instructions like 'be careful' into a path work must pass through.
Externalized memory: the work has to remember
Agents forget. Work should not. Memory is useful only when it carries source, date, certainty, and scope.
Externalized trust and the road to software factories
Software factories will not be built on agent confidence. They will be built on trust that lives outside the chat.
Harness engineering: the model is just the horse
Same model, same benchmark, 36-point score difference just from the setup around it. Most of my engineering work now is on that environment, not the prompts.