Build Your Own Agent Harness: Off-the-Shelf Frameworks Bloat Token Costs, Says DAIR.AI's Elvis
omarsar0 · x · 2026-09-15
Responding to Uncle Bob's observation that dropping his self-built harness slashed token consumption, DAIR.AI's Elvis argues out-of-the-box agent harnesses are bloated and charge a huge premium for features most users don't need. Building your own is one of the biggest levers to cut token costs. His key optimizations: tune only for the tasks you care about, use a lighter and more precise system prompt, make tool calling more efficient, improve context compaction and handoff, route different tasks to different models, and add custom verifiers for reliability. He cautions that token cost isn't the only factor — but users should know what they're paying for in generic frameworks.
More from coding & agent
- Gemini 4 tops public coding benchmarks but drops to bottom on private tasks — Hesamation · 2026-10-30
- User builds 20-bot Grok suite to track wins, prep 1:1s and close promises — NicoVerderosa · 2026-10-30
- Why 30-year-old BM25 beats vector embeddings for agentic search, per search vet Jo Kristian Bergum — jobergum · 2026-10-30
- LangChain CEO opens Interrupt London with keynote on why orgs should own their intelligence — LangChain · 2026-10-30
- Simlock: open-source control plane gives parallel coding agents their own iOS/Android simulators — Scobleizer · 2026-10-30
- Keyfleet launches open canvas where personal AI agents team up with a shared USDC treasury — seanwbren · 2026-10-30