Choose the Layer Before Choosing a Product

The model is not the runtime harness, and a framework, dashboard, or fleet manager is not automatically a runtime either. A runtime harness owns the iterative model-and-tool loop. A repository harness makes one codebase legible and verifiable. An orchestrator coordinates multiple runtime sessions. This distinction prevents a feature list from becoming a false comparison.

Read the Agent Harness Map for the strict runtime comparison and its wider, sourced directory. Read Agent Harness Engineering for the four-layer model, Agent Tools: Beyond Claude Code for frameworks and control planes, and the glossary for terminology. The operational follow-through belongs in Agent Evaluation, Session Observability, and Security Hardening.