THE ROLE OF THE AI HARNESS ENGINEER

MISTAKES NEWCOMERS OFTEN MAKE Knowing common mistakes can save you months. The first mistake is trusting the model to follow a rule because the prompt says so. A prompt is a request, while a harness setting is a guarantee, so important rules belong in code. The second mistake is building before measuring. Without a baseline score, nobody can say whether a change helped. The third mistake is adding complexity too early. A single agent with a few good tools often beats an elaborate team of agents, and it is far easier to debug. The fourth mistake is ignoring cost until the first large bill arrives. The fifth mistake is treating every piece of outside text as friendly, which is how injection attacks succeed. The sixth mistake is skipping the written record. When an engineer leaves or a month passes, undocumented reasons are lost. If you avoid these six mistakes, you will already be working at a professional standard.