2.6 The Harness¶

Everything around the loop that your code decides: the execution boundary, verification, permissions and hooks, memory, the context pipeline, tracing. The your-code half of the litmus test, assembled on one page.

Also called: harness engineering, scaffolding, the agent runtime, "model proposes, code disposes".

Stub: scaffolding, not finished writing · planned for a later release. The skeleton below shows the beats this chapter will hit. Contributions welcome.

Why you'd reach for it¶

The problem, what breaks without it, and when you need it. To be written.

What it actually is¶

A crisp definition, the maturity call argued with cited evidence, and how it differs from its neighbours. To be written.

How to do it¶

Code included from a tested file in listing-studio/, so the prose can't drift from working code. To be written.

Gotchas¶

The real costs and when not to, feeding the Anti-Patterns Catalog. To be written.

In short¶

A weighted recommendation: what you would actually do. To be written.

Maturity: Standard (the term and the practice are canonical in 2026; the pieces are older than the name) · Grounding: companion repo + research · Last reviewed: 2026-08

Sources¶

Citations added as the chapter is written. Every non-obvious claim gets a footnote.