arXiv AI

Harness as a Language: A Minimalist Agent Framework With Maximal Expressivity

The paper introduces JAZ, a minimalist LLM agent framework that centers on a single primitive called “invoke”, which allows an LLM to write and execute arbitrary code, including recursive calls, while treating all inputs and interaction history as variables in the code environment. JAZ provides built‑in hooks for constraints and monitoring but relies solely on prompting, without external tools, memory systems, or file‑system access. Experiments show that JAZ “invoke” outperforms specialized external harnesses such as Letta (MemGPT) and ACE on long‑horizon recall tasks and continual self‑improvement, achieving higher accuracy at lower cost.

arXiv AI
Aug 19

SkillEffect: Checked Lowering for Memory-Bounded Agent Tools

SkillEffect is a checked‑lowering runtime that ensures agent tool calls stay within memory limits by verifying each proposed program against an immutable input before execution. It uses audited relation plugins to provide source recognition, bounded intermediate representation construction, and postconditions, while a shared runtime handles selection, bounded VM execution, and atomic capacity leasing. Experiments across six operator families show that bounded access significantly reduces peak memory usage and improves completion rates under fixed memory caps.

By Yinuo Wang, Yiyu Shi
arXiv AI
Sep 11

Spec-Harness: Measuring and Improving Behavioral Adequacy of LLM-Synthesized Formal Specifications

Spec‑Harness evaluates how well large language models (LLMs) synthesize Java Modeling Language (JML) specifications by measuring behavioral adequacy across precondition and postcondition correctness and completeness. The study shows that while prompt optimization can raise verifier pass rates, many accepted specifications remain behaviorally weak, either over‑ or under‑constraining inputs and outputs. Spec‑Harness also serves as a feedback mechanism that improves the quality of specifications generated by general‑purpose coding agents and a specialized JML agent.

By Md Rakib Hossain Misu, Iris Ma, Cristina V. Lopes
arXiv AI
Aug 26

The Empire, Long Divided, Must Unite: Architectural Convergence in Three LLM Agent Harnesses

The paper examines three open-source agent harnesses—LangChain’s deepagents, Earendil’s pi, and DeepSeek’s dsh—each built from contrasting design philosophies. By analyzing their source code and commit histories, the authors find that the mature harnesses converge on five common architectural elements: a commoditized loop, an append‑only replayable session record, model quirks stored as data, progressive disclosure of context, and explicit extension seams. A fourth harness, used as a held‑out check, also displays all five elements and even reuses another’s implementation, indicating that convergence arises from parallel discovery, diffusion, and literal reuse rather than independent invention. The study notes a missing dimension—external verifiability via a tamper‑evident record—highlighting a future axis for provenance‑sensitive domains.

By Dai Jiahong
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jun 2

Agent libOS: A Library-OS-Inspired Runtime for Long-Running, Capability-Controlled LLM Agents

Large language model (LLM) agents are evolving from request-response assistants into long-running software actors: they maintain state across model calls, fork subtasks, wait for external events, request human authority, generate tools, and perform side effects that must be resumed and audited. This paper presents Agent libOS, a library-OS-inspired runtime substrate for LLM agents.

arXiv AI
Sep 3

Harness Engineering in LLM Tool Use via Agent-Native Reusable Tool Primitives

The paper introduces Tool Primitives, a design that replaces rigid API schemas with natural language interfaces for tool calling, enabling seamless inter-tool communication. It builds ToolFace, a repository of over 25,000 functions that LLMs can dynamically retrieve, and HEART, a harness engineering framework that orchestrates tool use with planning, routing, and verification. Experiments show HEART outperforms fine‑tuned models and leading commercial LLMs while cutting API costs by up to 85%.

By Haibo Jin, Suijin Wang, Xucheng Yu, Haojing Luo, Haohan Wang
arXiv AI
Aug 19

Agent Lightning v1.0: Towards Harnessed Agentic RL

Agent Lightning v1.0 is a lightweight framework that enables harnessed agentic reinforcement learning, where the agent harness—managing tools, context, and control flow—directly participates in model post‑training. It supports arbitrary agent harnesses and addresses challenges such as retokenization, sample merging, and advantage calculation, providing a reproducible pipeline for instruction‑following, search, and coding agents. In experiments, RL training on 6K examples improved Qwen3.5‑9B’s performance on SWE‑bench from 41.8% to 56.4%.

By Zhiyuan He, Siwei Zhang, Zhiwen Zhou, Yuqing Yang, Yu Kang, Yuge Zhang, Luna K. Qiu, Tin Yan Tsui, Jiahang Xu, Chong Luo
arXiv AI
Jul 21

ETAS: An Effect-Typed Language for Agent Systems

arXiv:2607. 17780v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: ETAS is a programming language for agent systems that treats model-backed agents, tool calls, prompts, typed memory, human approvals, policies, and execution traces as semantic program elements rather than library conventions.

By Huiri Tan, Yikun Wang, Puyang Zhang, Shangyu Li, Jiasi Shen
arXiv AI
Jul 14

AgentAbstain: Do LLM Agents Know When Not to Act?

arXiv:2607. 10059v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Agent systems based on large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed for autonomous tasks, yet existing evaluations mostly focus on task success rather than whether agents know when to abstain.

By Xun Liu, Yi Evie Zhang, Vira Kasprova, Parisa Rabbani, Pardis Sadat Zahraei, Tianyu Zhang, Ali Ebrahimpour-Boroojeny, Varun Chandrasekaran