AI agents are getting more complex. Developers shouldn't have to babysit them

Thoughtworks' Vanitha Kumar describes harness engineering, which equips coding agents with automated tests, feedback loops and guardrails so they can self-correct before human review and run longer tasks with less intervention. She compares AI factories, which standardize infrastructure for model selection, workload management and cost optimization, to Kubernetes, and predicts security will be a major topic within a year. Thoughtworks' Technology Radar Volume 35, released November 4, 2026, emphasizes AI, harness engineering and established practices like penetration testing that are regaining importance.