3 ms·

The moat is not the model, it's the harness. I wager that's one of the main reasons why Google made Antigravity closed source.

dudisubekti 4mo ago
But harness is relatively easy to code yourself? They're just system prompt composer, with some tool functions that the LLM can invoke. I've vibe coded my own in just one day.
- Paradigma11 4mo ago
  But is there anything preventing them from putting their own proprietary wolfram alpha/prolog/super duper expert system in there?
  - SwellJoe 4mo ago
    Only that it would just slow down the model and make it dumber. You can't tool and harness a weak model into strength and you probably don't improve top models with boondoggles.
  - dudisubekti 4mo ago
    I guess... but I think, at its core, a good coding harness usually includes: - well-crafted system prompt that follows best practices - good contextual reminder prompts (when an llm got stuck in an infinite loop and times out, forgets how to use tools, or needs recurring best practice reminders, etc) - well-written ergonomic tools the llm can use (read/write files, read diffs, browse the internet, etc) I dont think these are anything special. The deepest moat I can think of is, proprietary models can be specifically trained to use their proprietary harnesses, so they are more token-efficient and make less tool call and file editing mistakes. However in my experience, I'm as comfortable working with my own homemade harness as with Claude Code, so I don't think it's a deep moat...
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4mo ago
  I don't understand why this is being presented as an either/or thing. The moat is actually the harness AND the model, and one of the reasons that Claude works so well is because the model is actually trained with its usage in that specific harness in mind, and the harness is designed to deal with Claude model's idiosyncracies. Easy to validate, just run Claude through some other harness and compare, then just run some other model through Claude's harness and compare
SwellJoe 4mo ago
I don't feel strongly about anything most folks are arguing back and forth about, but this one is obviously wrong. Everybody and their brother has made an agent. There are toolkits. You can whip one up in an afternoon. Not only that, I've found models often perform worse, or at least cost more and take longer, in a big complicated agent like Claude Code, including Anthropic models. They want proprietary doodads hanging off the side (multi agent orchestration, memory, things of that nature) to matter, because they can lock you into tools like that. But, top models can do everything with bash.
turtlesdown11 4mo ago
Could you explain your analogy here, what does a moat have to do with a harness?

dudisubekti 4mo ago

But harness is relatively easy to code yourself? They're just system prompt composer, with some tool functions that the LLM can invoke. I've vibe coded my own in just one day.

Paradigma11 4mo ago
But is there anything preventing them from putting their own proprietary wolfram alpha/prolog/super duper expert system in there?
- SwellJoe 4mo ago
  Only that it would just slow down the model and make it dumber. You can't tool and harness a weak model into strength and you probably don't improve top models with boondoggles.
- dudisubekti 4mo ago
  I guess... but I think, at its core, a good coding harness usually includes: - well-crafted system prompt that follows best practices - good contextual reminder prompts (when an llm got stuck in an infinite loop and times out, forgets how to use tools, or needs recurring best practice reminders, etc) - well-written ergonomic tools the llm can use (read/write files, read diffs, browse the internet, etc) I dont think these are anything special. The deepest moat I can think of is, proprietary models can be specifically trained to use their proprietary harnesses, so they are more token-efficient and make less tool call and file editing mistakes. However in my experience, I'm as comfortable working with my own homemade harness as with Claude Code, so I don't think it's a deep moat...
SOLAR_FIELDS 4mo ago
I don't understand why this is being presented as an either/or thing. The moat is actually the harness AND the model, and one of the reasons that Claude works so well is because the model is actually trained with its usage in that specific harness in mind, and the harness is designed to deal with Claude model's idiosyncracies. Easy to validate, just run Claude through some other harness and compare, then just run some other model through Claude's harness and compare

SwellJoe 4mo ago

I don't feel strongly about anything most folks are arguing back and forth about, but this one is obviously wrong. Everybody and their brother has made an agent. There are toolkits. You can whip one up in an afternoon. Not only that, I've found models often perform worse, or at least cost more and take longer, in a big complicated agent like Claude Code, including Anthropic models. They want proprietary doodads hanging off the side (multi agent orchestration, memory, things of that nature) to matter, because they can lock you into tools like that. But, top models can do everything with bash.

turtlesdown11 4mo ago

Could you explain your analogy here, what does a moat have to do with a harness?