Elvis Saravia Recommends Tiny Custom Agent Harnesses First
AI researcher Elvis Saravia advises skipping frameworks to build a minimal agent loop from scratch.
Elvis Saravia, an AI researcher and co-founder of DAIR.AI, posted advice on X for those asking about harness engineering. He recommends skipping frameworks and instead building the smallest possible harness consisting of one agent loop, a few tools, and a system prompt written from scratch. Saravia stated that this method leads to more learning than a month of reading tutorials. The post presents his direct recommendation on starting with custom agent work.
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Elvis Saravia Recommends Tiny Custom Agent Harnesses First
AI researcher Elvis Saravia advises skipping frameworks to build a minimal agent loop from scratch.
Elvis Saravia, an AI researcher and co-founder of DAIR.AI, posted advice on X for those asking about harness engineering. He recommends skipping frameworks and instead building the smallest possible harness consisting of one agent loop, a few tools, and a system prompt written from scratch. Saravia stated that this method leads to more learning than a month of reading tutorials. The post presents his direct recommendation on starting with custom agent work.
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elvis@omarsar0People keep asking me where to start with harness engineering. Skip the frameworks at first. Build the tiniest possible harness. One agent loop, a few tools, and a system prompt you wrote from scratch. You'll learn more from that than from a month of reading tutorials.
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