What Is Harness Engineering?

The essay argues that software engineering is shifting from manual coding to "Harness Engineering": like the F-16 pilot who manages a computer rather than physically flying, modern engineers should design the environment, boundaries, and tooling that let AI (e.g., Codex) implement and iterate on code—focusing on problem decomposition, system architecture, and guiding agents through progressive disclosure—so humans become essential orchestrators rather than typists.