[btbuildem]

> idea that agent harnesses should primarily have their functionality dictated by plaintext commands feels like a copout

I think it's more along the lines of acknowledging the fast-paced changes in the field, and refusing to cast into code something that's likely to rapidly evolve in the near future.

Once things settle down into tested practices, we'll see more "permanent" instrumentation arise.

[daturkel]

Surely this logic doesn't apply if we're to believe that "code is cheap" now :p

[btbuildem]

"Code is cheap" has two interpretations here: one, that's its no longer seen as the artisanally-crafted fine product, now it's "manufactured". Two, though, is that it's cheaper in ops -- once the criteria are fully discovered, once no more new paths for the agents to roam, things that have been cast into code consume minimal resources (in AI scale of things), they're doggedly deterministic, and are free of heavy dependencies.

So yeah, I believe "it's a phase" but in a sense that it's a development phase, just like planning or prototyping.