Harnesses & Agent Systems

The system around the model — the rung that turns a token price into a TASK price. In scope: scaffolding and orchestration, tool use, context and memory management, retries and recovery, agent evaluation and benchmarks, failure modes at step three, agent security and the exploitation surface, and cost-per-completed-task. The load-bearing finding this topic already holds: for long-horizon agentic work the harness is often a stronger performance determinant than the model. Connor's seat here is `ran it` — he runs desks, subagents and workflows daily, which is the standing the teaching doctrine requires for a teaching-level claim.