Different types of AI engineering

Because this is in the AI space it's a lot harder to get shared definitions rather than catchy buzzwords. However, the following seem to have some meat around them - at least separating the harness + context from the prompt.

Harness engineering

• A harness is the system around the model that makes the agent work better
• Designs the environment, tools, guardrails, and feedback loops
• [[20260413105415-models-and-harnesses]]

Context engineering

• Controlling what the model sees during a whole session
• Working at a layer lower than the harness here, but some people kind of consolidate context and harness engineering together
• Instruction files, tokens, MCPs, etc.

Prompt engineering

• The prompt itself, crafting the best input to the model

[[20260413105415-models-and-harnesses]]

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