arXiv AI By Arian Abbasi, Alan Aqrawi, Ted Kwartler

Control the Harness, Control the Cost: Routing and Governing AI Coding Agents in the Enterprise

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The paper discusses how enterprises increasingly deploy AI coding agent harnesses, often purchased from vendors like Anthropic or OpenAI, and how these harnesses dictate model choice, prompt handling, and cost. It introduces a fast, customizable routing system that classifies prompts and strategically routes them to minimize expensive model usage, achieving 14–21% cost savings in a simulated 10,000-seat enterprise. The study also evaluates risks across twenty harnesses, highlights vendor dependence, and proposes an internal control plane for future harness ownership decisions.

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