DEFINITION

Harness Engineering

Harness Engineering for AI Agents

Definition

The practice of building safety guardrails, execution sandboxes, and control systems around AI agents to prevent unintended actions, enforce constraints, and protect both systems and agents from harmful behavior.

Examples in the Wild

  • Example 1:Shell command execution sandboxes
  • Example 2:File system access controls
  • Example 3:API rate limiting and validation
  • Example 4:Rollback mechanisms for agent actions

See it in action

View harness-design-patterns Template →View agent-safety-implementation Template →