Harness engineering for coding agent users
4.20T1 sourcemartinfowler.com (Exploring Gen AI series, incl. Böckeler)
Source record
Published by martinfowler.com (Exploring Gen AI series, incl. Böckeler) (T1 source). The original is at https://martinfowler.com/articles/harness-engineering.html.
Pipeline notes
The summary and note below are generated by the signal pipeline — they are Beyond Desk’s reading, not quotations from the source.
SummaryBöckeler proposes a mental model for building trust in coding agents by defining the harness as everything in an agent except the model. She introduces feedforward guides and feedback sensors as components of an outer, user-built harness tailored to specific coding workflows and contexts.
Why it mattersGives a clean Agent = Model + Harness decomposition and vocabulary (feedforward, feedback sensors) that lets teams reason about their coding agent setup systematically instead of as a black box.

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