Harness
From a cited source
The fixed rules and checks built around an agent's job, such as what it may touch, what it must never change, when it must stop and ask, and a record of what it did.
Origin. BCG (2026) uses "harness engineering" for the scaffolding around agents, from specifications and rules to quality gates with a named human signatory. (Aparna Kapoor, Vincent Paca, Nerijus Zemgulys (BCG) (2026))
How I use it. I use it for the rules around one job, not a whole engineering platform.
Not to be confused with
- Guardrails: limits on what a model may output; a harness also covers the job's scope, escalation and record.
Example. Our head of sales can update the website through an agent. The design, the strategic direction and the language rules are fixed; that is the harness.