This article distinguishes between prompt engineering and harness engineering in AI agents. Prompt engineering focuses on what is communicated to the model, such as instructions and examples, influencing its reasoning. Harness engineering encompasses the surrounding system, including context, tool access, output handling, and state management, acting as the agent's operating system. The author argues that failures often appear similar but stem from different layers, with the common reflex to fix prompts incorrectly addressing harness-level issues. AI
IMPACT Clarifies common failure points in AI agents, guiding developers to focus on system architecture over prompt tuning for robust operation.
RANK_REASON The article discusses concepts and best practices for AI agent development rather than announcing a new product or research.
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