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CONCEPT

Harness

The scaffolding layer around a language model that turns it into a working agent — tools, prompts, memory, execution environment, and safety checks. A common formulation holds that the model is a small part of an agent's practical capability and the harness the larger part, making it a distinct engineering object.

Origin

The word entered agent discourse to name the scaffolding — tools, memory, safety — wrapped around a raw model to make it act.

category
Agent abstraction layer (tools, prompts, memory, security)
equation
Agent = Model + Harness; model ~10%, harness ~90%

Related entities

Fiches (2)