Harness engineering reduced to prompts and tools, but it's what makes agents reliable
techNmak · x · 2026-10-04
The thread argues that harness engineering is becoming one of the most important parts of building reliable AI agents, yet is still often reduced to prompts and tool calling. Core point: a capable model by itself is not an agent. Reliability comes from harness-level decisions — which context the model sees, which tools it can use, how tools execute, what state survives between steps, which actions need approval, how failures are returned, and when to stop.
Related event: Models Aren't Agents: Why Harness Engineering Deserves More Attention(2 posts)→
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