--- id: "/agents/" title: "Agents and harnesses" creator: null url: "https://skillissue.dev/agents/" level: null category: null models: null source_date: null date_added: null --- # Agents and harnesses [Beginner](/agents/beginner/index.md) [Intermediate](/agents/intermediate/index.md) [Advanced](/agents/advanced/index.md) [Expert](/agents/expert/index.md) 26 resources - ### [AGENTS.md](/e/agentsmd-agents-md/index.md) by [AGENTS.md (multi-vendor open format)](https://agents.md/) Open format for a repo instruction file that coding agents read. Beginner · any · date not stated - ### [Building Effective AI Agents](/e/anthropic-building-effective-agents/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents) Workflows vs agents and the core patterns; argues to start simple. Readable without code. Beginner · any · 2024-12-19 - ### [AI Agents Course](/e/hf-ai-agents-course/index.md) by [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/learn/agents-course/unit0/introduction) Free course from 'what is an agent' to building one. Beginner · any · date not stated - ### [A practical guide to building agents (PDF)](/e/openai-practical-guide-to-building-agents/index.md) by [OpenAI](https://cdn.openai.com/business-guides-and-resources/a-practical-guide-to-building-agents.pdf) Plain-language foundations: when to build an agent, orchestration, guardrails. Beginner · any · date not stated - ### [Equipping agents for the real world with Agent Skills](/e/anthropic-agent-skills/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/equipping-agents-for-the-real-world-with-agent-skills) Packaging instructions and scripts as loadable skills. Intermediate · claude · 2025-10-16 - ### [Best practices for Claude Code](/e/anthropic-claude-code-best-practices/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/best-practices) Concrete coding-agent workflow habits: plan, verify, manage context. Intermediate · claude · date not stated - ### [Effective context engineering for AI agents](/e/anthropic-effective-context-engineering/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/effective-context-engineering-for-ai-agents) Treats context as a finite budget: compaction, notes, sub-agents. Intermediate · any · 2025-09-29 - ### [12-Factor Agents](/e/humanlayer-12-factor-agents/index.md) by [HumanLayer (Dex Horthy)](https://github.com/humanlayer/12-factor-agents) Principles for agents that hold up in production. Intermediate · any · date not stated - ### [Agents](/e/huyenchip-agents/index.md) by [Chip Huyen](https://huyenchip.com/2025/01/07/agents.html) Long-form essay on tools, planning, failure modes and evaluating agents. Intermediate · any · 2025-01-07 - ### [LLM Powered Autonomous Agents](/e/lilianweng-llm-powered-autonomous-agents/index.md) by [Lilian Weng](https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2023-06-23-agent/) Classic overview of planning, memory and tool use in agents. Intermediate · any · 2023-06-23 - ### [Model Context Protocol docs](/e/mcp-model-context-protocol-docs/index.md) by [MCP project](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) The spec and docs for connecting tools and data to agents. Intermediate · any · date not stated - ### [OpenAI Agents SDK](/e/openai-agents-sdk/index.md) by [OpenAI](https://openai.github.io/openai-agents-python/) Lightweight framework: handoffs, guardrails, tracing. Intermediate · gpt · date not stated - ### [Context Engineering for Agents](/e/rlancemartin-context-engineering-for-agents/index.md) by [Lance Martin](https://rlancemartin.github.io/2025/06/23/context_engineering/) Write/select/compress/isolate taxonomy of context strategies. Intermediate · any · 2025-06-23 - ### [Effective harnesses for long-running agents](/e/anthropic-effective-harnesses-long-running-agents/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/effective-harnesses-for-long-running-agents) Harness design for agents that work across many context windows. Advanced · claude · 2025-11-26 - ### [How we built our multi-agent research system](/e/anthropic-multi-agent-research-system/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/multi-agent-research-system) Real production lessons on orchestrator/sub-agent design and its costs. Advanced · claude · 2025-06-13 - ### [Writing effective tools for AI agents](/e/anthropic-writing-tools-for-agents/index.md) by [Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/writing-tools-for-agents) How to design, evaluate and improve the tools an agent calls. Advanced · any · 2025-09-11 - ### [Context Rot: How Increasing Input Tokens Impacts LLM Performance](/e/chroma-context-rot/index.md) by [Chroma](https://www.trychroma.com/research/context-rot) Measures how output quality drops as input length grows. Advanced · any · date not stated - ### [Don't Build Multi-Agents](/e/cognition-dont-build-multi-agents/index.md) by [Cognition](https://cognition.com/blog/dont-build-multi-agents) The counter-argument: context sharing beats splitting work across agents. Advanced · any · 2025-06-12 - ### [Context Engineering for AI Agents: Lessons from Building Manus](/e/manus-context-engineering-lessons/index.md) by [Manus](https://manus.im/blog/Context-Engineering-for-AI-Agents-Lessons-from-Building-Manus) KV-cache-aware design, file system as memory, keep errors in context. Advanced · any · date not stated - ### [MCP reference servers](/e/mcp-reference-servers/index.md) by [MCP project](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers) Reference implementations to learn MCP server design from. Advanced · any · date not stated - ### [OpenHands](/e/openhands-openhands/index.md) by [OpenHands (All Hands AI)](https://github.com/OpenHands/OpenHands) Open-source coding-agent platform worth reading as a reference harness. Advanced · any · date not stated - ### [The lethal trifecta for AI agents](/e/willison-lethal-trifecta/index.md) by [Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta/) A defensive framework for recognizing risky combinations of agent capabilities and untrusted inputs. Advanced · any · 2025-06-16 - ### [Design Patterns for Securing LLM Agents against Prompt Injections](/e/willison-prompt-injection-design-patterns/index.md) by [Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/13/prompt-injection-design-patterns/) Summary of a paper's defensive agent architectures. Advanced · any · 2025-06-13 - ### [Not what you've signed up for: Compromising Real-World LLM-Integrated Applications with Indirect Prompt Injection](/e/greshake-indirect-prompt-injection/index.md) by [Kai Greshake et al.](https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.12173) Foundational public research on indirect prompt injection. Linked only; no payloads reproduced. Expert · any · 2023-02-23 - ### [SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering](/e/yang-swe-agent/index.md) by [John Yang et al.](https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15793) Research on how the agent-computer interface influences software-engineering performance. Expert · any · 2024-05-06 - ### [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](/e/yao-react/index.md) by [Shunyu Yao et al.](https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.03629) Research on combining reasoning with environment actions, a useful reference for agent-loop design. Expert · any · 2022-10-06