Ask HN: AI Agents vs. Gateways vs. Harnesses

1 point

3 months ago

Hi,

I'd like to get everyone's take on the different components in the AI Agents ecoysystem. I find the current terminology quite confusing as it's not always obvious what I'll be actually getting when I examine the available options.

A lot of things get called Agents, but that term seems hard to define as it often refers to overlapping functionality. To me, agents seem to be currently composed of the following components:

## Harnesses

- Adds UI and system instructions around an LLM and may also augment it with tools such as memory, tool calls, etc...

- Examples are Claude Code, Code, Gemini CLI, pi.dev, ...

## Gateways

- These connect agents to your communication tool of choice, e.g. Whatsapp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, ...

- Examples are OpenClaw and Nanoclaw

## Sandboxes

- Isolated environments where Agents can run with limited or auditable capabilities

- Examples can be from physical ones like separate Mac Minis to docker-agent, agent-sandbox, localsandbox, ...

This then takes us to *Agents*:

## Agents

- AI Systems capable of exercising some agency, i.e. non-zero amounts of autonomous behaviour without a human-in-the-loop.

- These usually combine the following components:

  - **LLM**: to provide the intelligence/reasoning/decision making

  - **Harness**: to steer the behaviour and enable long-term coherence of actions beyond the limits of current context windows

  - **Gateway**: to interact with humans and/or other agents

  - **Sandbox**: that aims to limit the capabilities of the Agent to a sanctioned set of safe operations for the agent to execute autonomously.

My issue is that when I look at the available options, it's generally not clear to me which components I am getting:

  - https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw: Typescript, The OG, one-stop solution, easiest to install but apparently a bit of a Frankenmonster and complex

  - https://github.com/qwibitai/nanoclaw: Typescript, gaining popularity, minimalist, implementation seems reliant on Claude Code to handle install and configuration

  - https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw: Golang

  - https://github.com/zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw: Rust

  - https://github.com/nullclaw/nullclaw: Zig

  - https://nemoclaw.bot/: By Nvidia, claims to be open source "based", but I couldn't find a repo

What I would really like is to be able to assemble my own stack of Sandbox + Gateway + Harness + LLM. Thoughts/recommendations?

- **LLM**: to provide the intelligence/reasoning/decision making - **Harness**: to steer the behaviour and enable long-term coherence of actions beyond the limits of current context windows - **Gateway**: to interact with humans and/or other agents - **Sandbox**: that aims to limit the capabilities of the Agent to a sanctioned set of safe operations for the agent to execute autonomously.

- https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw: Typescript, The OG, one-stop solution, easiest to install but apparently a bit of a Frankenmonster and complex - https://github.com/qwibitai/nanoclaw: Typescript, gaining popularity, minimalist, implementation seems reliant on Claude Code to handle install and configuration - https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw: Golang - https://github.com/zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw: Rust - https://github.com/nullclaw/nullclaw: Zig - https://nemoclaw.bot/: By Nvidia, claims to be open source "based", but I couldn't find a repo