Harness Engineering: Design Patterns for Securing Long-Horizon Multi-Agent AI Systems

· Packt Publishing Ltd
Ebook
326
Pages
Tools

About this ebook

Build a secure control plane for agentic AI with design patterns for bounded autonomy, least privilege identity, trusted context, governed memory, and runtime recoveryKey Features
  • Design a security control plane for long running agents and delegated multi-agent work
  • Contain prompt injection and memory poisoning through enforceable trust boundaries
  • Use HarnessLab scenarios to connect design patterns with observable control decisions
Book DescriptionLong-running AI agents need controls that hold across tool calls, delegated tasks, and persistent memory. Harness Engineering presents design patterns for securing long-horizon multi-agent AI systems through a control plane that governs autonomy, identity, intent, context, and memory. Learn to scope agent permissions, contain prompt injection, detect goal drift, and place human oversight where consequential actions require it. Through architectural diagrams and HarnessLab scenarios, explore decision tracing, evaluation gates, runtime intervention, recovery, fleet coordination, and data governance. Build the engineering judgment to make agent behavior observable, authority accountable, and improvement measurable, so you can move from promising prototypes to controlled production operations.What you will learn
  • Set autonomy budgets and risk based human approval gates
  • Scope agent identities, credentials, and delegation chains
  • Bind tool authority to intent and detect goal drift
  • Contain prompt injection and govern persistent memory
  • Use decision traces and evals to govern agent improvement
  • Steer live runs and enforce fleet and data boundaries
Who this book is for

For AI engineers, security architects, platform teams, and technical leaders designing or governing long running agentic AI systems. Researchers and graduate students will also benefit from its pattern based treatment of agent security and control. Familiarity with LLM applications, tool calling, access control, and distributed systems is recommended. The book supports readers moving from agent prototypes to accountable enterprise operations.

Build a secure control plane for agentic AI with design patterns for bounded autonomy, least privilege identity, trusted context, governed memory, and runtime recoveryKey Features Design a security control plane for long running agents and delegated multi-agent work Contain prompt injection and m...

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About the author

Ken Huang is an author and researcher in AI applications and agentic AI security, serving as CEO and Chief AI Officer at DistributedApps. He is Co-Chair of AI safety groups at the Cloud Security Alliance and the OWASP AIVSS Project, and Co-Chair of the AI STR Working Group at the World Digital Technology Academy. He is an EC-Council instructor and Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco, teaching GenAI and agentic AI security to data scientists. He co-authored OWASP's Top 10 for LLM Applications and contributes to the NIST Generative AI Public Working Group. His books are published by Springer, Cambridge, Wiley, Packt, and China Machine Press. A frequent global speaker, he participates in major technology and policy forums.

Ken Huang is an author and researcher in AI applications and agentic AI security, serving as CEO and Chief AI Officer at DistributedApps. He is Co-Chair of AI safety groups at the Cloud Security Alliance and the OWASP AIVSS Project, and Co-Chair of the AI STR Working Group at the World Digital Te...

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