Leader profile

Harrison Chase

Harrison Chase is the founder and CEO of LangChain.

Current role

Role: CEO
Company: LangChain
Official link: https://x.com/hwchase17?lang=en

Recent viewpoints

Agents combine a harness, model, and context

Chase describes an agent as three main components: a harness that orchestrates a model and its context, and argues that owning an organization's intelligence involves control over all three.

Harrison Chase Agent Harnesses Source at 1:09

A harness brings context to the model when needed

Chase says the harness's primary role is orchestrating fixed and dynamic context so the model receives the appropriate information at the appropriate point in its execution loop.

Harrison Chase Agent Harnesses Source at 2:02

Most agents share a simple model-and-tools loop

Chase characterizes the core architecture of most agents as an LLM repeatedly generating responses, calling tools when needed, and receiving tool observations back into the loop.

Harrison Chase Agent Harnesses Source at 2:43

Middleware can customize the core agent loop

Chase says hooks, plugins, and middleware can modify different stages of a basic agent loop to add capabilities such as file systems, sub-agents, memory, summarization, and context offloading.

Harrison Chase Harness Customization Source at 3:25

Start general and specialize as requirements become clearer

Chase recommends starting with a general-purpose harness for faster time to value, then adding gates, checks, or more explicit cognitive architecture as the target use case becomes more specialized.

Harrison Chase Off-the-Shelf vs Custom Harnesses Source at 6:37

Recent interviews

When to Build Your Own Agent Harness | Harrison Chase, LangChain

Aug 13, 2026

Major topics

Design IterationLast interview Aug 15, 2026 TypographyLast interview Aug 15, 2026 InternationalizationLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Visual PrototypingLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Logo DesignLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Project PlanningLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Creative CollaborationLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Meaningful DesignLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Accessible ComputingLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Design ConstraintsLast interview Aug 15, 2026