AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
agent harness — The scaffolding around a model that turns it into a working agent — the loop, the tools it can call, and the rules for when to stop.
token — The chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.
Why it matters
Describes a concrete agent harnessThe scaffolding around a model that turns it into a working agent — the loop, the tools it can call, and the rules for when to stop.Full definition → architecture for cutting tokenThe chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.Full definition → overhead from tool-call bookkeeping and enabling non-blocking user steering, an alternative to CLI-first assumptions in SDKs like Claude's AI agentAn AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.Full definition → SDK.
videoHarness Engineering: Building the Production Cage for Powerful Domain Agents — Mike Chambers, AWSAI Engineer
articleIntroducing Omnigent: A Meta-Harness to Combine, Control and Share Your Agents | Databricks Blogwww.databricks.com
videoCodex, Behind the Harness — Dominik Kundel, OpenAIAI Engineer