What is 'harness engineering' for AI agents, and why does the scaffolding matter as much as the model?
One model can behave completely differently depending on the harness wrapped around it. The signal is recognizing that the scaffolding frequently sets agent quality more than the underlying model does. Here is the answer.
Updated Sep 2026 · Grounded in real GenAI, LLM, and AI/ML engineering interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
One model can behave completely differently depending on the harness wrapped around it. The signal is recognizing that the scaffolding frequently sets agent quality more than the underlying model does. Here is the answer.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.
