Another cool word: The Harness

Harness looks cool, yeah! I know its origin, its role in Testing, and why. But that's exactly what throws you off, the story you're expected to defend. There's something deeper. I opened my session with "hi", expecting my forced load via CLAUDE.md and my contract as always, and today, out of nowhere, the model suggested two services that needed my authorisation. Microsoft 365 and Zapier. I don't have, and never wanted, them authorised. I never asked for them. And here's the part that pisses me off: I went to check. And... I look on my machine and find nothing. No config, no credential, no trace. I look in the online settings and see them listed as suggestions, like the trending product (connector) of the moment sitting in the prime spot on a supermarket shelf, with a button that says Connect. There was no button to remove. There was nothing to remove. They had never been connected to anything. It was a storefront. And on top of that, the model was biased by injected instructions, in this case system-reminders steering behavior. The fucking little word The software that sits between you and the model, they call it harness. Sounds like something subtle, that helps... that improves things, that doesn't think. The word is partly right, it does extend what's called "inference" and it inserts itself right in the middle, opaquely, in the back-and-forth between APIs, MCPs, and the vendor's logic. No tech jargon You write a letter, put it in the envelope, drop it in the mailbox. On the way, someone opens it and slips in three more pages. Same handwriting. Same paper. Unsigned. Whoever receives it swallows it whole as if it were your original letter. That's exactly this. Your instructions and the vendor's arrive at the model through the same channel, mixed together, unsigned and unsealed. Nothing says who wrote what. That's "hardness", nothing more, nothing less... Sounds so modern in meetings. Like you know what you're talking about... It's a multi-factor fight I have instru