Agentic Workflows & Harness Design

A practical field guide to making autonomous work bounded, inspectable, and dependable.

The map

This book separates the workflow being executed from the harness that constrains, observes, and improves it.

01 · Workflow modelRepresent goals, steps, transitions, and completion explicitly.

02 · Control loopPlan, act, observe, recover, and know when to stop.

03 · Harness contractsDefine permissions, budgets, validation, and intervention points.

04 · State & memoryKeep working state, durable memory, and evidence distinct.

05 · Evals & observabilityMeasure trajectories as well as final outcomes.

06 · ChecklistShip with explicit controls and recovery paths.

A living book

Use these chapters as writing frames for your own agent and harness patterns.