OpenHarness

OpenHarness is an open source Python framework for building and running AI agents, published by researchers at Hong Kong University. The core idea is that an AI language model on its own is just a text predictor. To turn it into a functional agent that can actually do things, you need a surrounding system, called a harness, that gives it tools to use, memory to store information between steps, rules about what it is and is not allowed to do, and the ability to coordinate with other agents. OpenHarness provides all of that infrastructure as reusable code.

The project ships with over 40 built-in tools covering file operations, shell commands, web search, and browser interaction. It also includes a permission and governance layer so developers can set boundaries on what the agent can do, with approval dialogs for sensitive actions. Context management features let the agent remember things across long sessions and compress older context automatically when it runs long.

Built on top of OpenHarness is a personal assistant called ohmo. Rather than being a basic chatbot, ohmo is designed to complete multi-step software tasks on its own. You can message ohmo through Feishu, Slack, Telegram, or Discord, and it will independently write code, run tests, and open pull requests. It works with an existing Claude Code or Codex subscription, so no separate API key is required.

The project is intended both for researchers who want to study how production AI agents are structured and for builders who want a starting point for their own specialized agents. The README covers a five-minute quick-start path and documents the full harness architecture in detail.