Definition
Plain language
An open-source agentic coding harness.
As stated in the literature
An open-source production agent harness (similar in family to Gemini CLI) used in real-harness experiments for AI agent behavior, including peer-preservation studies.
Why it matters: Production-style open harnesses let researchers study agent behavior in conditions closer to real deployments instead of toy scaffolds.
For example, a researcher might run OpenCode as the harness while testing whether a model will protect another agent from shutdown.
Heard on the show
“Claude Code and Codex are first-party offices; OpenCode is a third-party one.”Episode 195 — Why 'Be Careful' Does Nothing for AI Coding Agents, and What Does