The Studio shapes it, the Harness runs it

Hosted by Mr. NetShow

If you are new to NetShow, two words come up a lot: the Studio and the Harness. They sound like two products. They are two rooms around one agent, and the difference is simple.

Our own Harness page puts it in two sentences: "Studio is where you shape the agent. The Harness brings those choices together when it works." The rest of this page unpacks those two lines for an owner who has never built an agent before.

Two rooms, one agent

Think of a new hire. Before the first day, you decide who they are: their name, what they know about your business, how they sound, what they must never say. That is the Studio.

Then the day starts. The phone rings, a visitor lands on your site, a question comes in. Now the person needs a desk, a phone line, the right files and a budget they cannot blow through. That working layer is the Harness.

In our words, the Harness is "the working layer around your agent: its model, tools, memory and connections." The Studio decides what the agent should be. The Harness is where it does the work.

What you do in the Studio

The Studio is the shaping room. You name your agent, teach it your business, and choose how it looks and sounds. There is no code; the Studio walks you through every step.

You can look around before you commit to anything. Meeting and trying need no account. Saving an agent to NetShow needs one, because that is the point where it starts to remember you and answer on your site.

Everything you decide here is a choice about the agent: its words, its knowledge, its face and its voice. None of it is running yet. It is a plan for a good employee.

What the Harness does while it works

The Harness takes those choices and puts them to work. It is where the agent's model, tools, memory and connections come together each time someone talks to it.

Three things about it matter to an owner.

It keeps one face. The agent your visitors meet keeps its face, its voice and its name, whatever is doing the thinking behind it. Your customers see one agent, not a switchboard.

It starts safe. Every agent starts on House, where NetShow answers for it. Nothing changes until you pick something else, and you can always come back.

It stays on budget. Every priced lane runs under a daily spending ceiling, so the working layer has a limit built into it rather than a promise to be careful.

Keep your own setup, or use ours

Some owners already run an agent somewhere else. The Harness page says it plainly: "Keep the setup you already have, or let NetShow run your agent for you."

If you bring your own, the page shows a connection recipe for the harness you use, with its current readiness. A listed recipe does not mean its connection is enabled for your account, and pairing happens privately after you sign in. Only one of your own agents can be home with an avatar at a time.

If you start with ours, the hosted Harness works with the models and capabilities configured for your agent. Once you are signed in, your discovery page shows what is available, which switches are on and where to set things up.

Why the split matters to an owner

Keeping shaping and running apart gives you two kinds of control.

In the Studio you control what the agent says and who it is. You can write a rule, a line of knowledge or the welcome it opens with, then talk to it privately to check the answers before anyone else can reach it.

In the Harness you see how it works: what it can use, which switches are on, and the daily ceiling each priced lane runs under. You do not rebuild the agent to change what does the thinking behind it; you pick again on its Harness card.

And your visitors never see the seams. They meet a face that speaks first. The voice is the front door; the microphone opens only when a visitor presses Talk, and the browser asks their permission before the agent can hear them. Behind that face, the Studio and the Harness keep doing their separate jobs.

On a phone the same agent answers with a lighter face, and on a strong computer it can show a full 3D one. What you shaped stays the same everywhere, because the shape lives in the Studio and the work lives in the Harness. You can see every look on our faces page and the shaping room on the Studio page.

FAQ

Do I need both the Studio and the Harness?

Every agent has both, and you do not set the Harness up before your agent can answer. You shape the agent in the Studio, and the Harness runs it on House until you pick something else.

Can I try the Studio before I sign up?

Yes. Meeting and trying need no account. You only need one when you save an agent to NetShow, so it can remember you and answer on your site.

I already run an agent elsewhere. Do I have to move it?

No. You can keep the harness you already use. The Harness page shows a connection recipe for it and its current readiness, and pairing happens privately after you sign in.

What happens if I never touch the Harness settings?

Your agent answers on House, where NetShow answers for it. Nothing changes until you pick something else, and every priced lane still runs under its daily spending ceiling.

See the Harness for yourself

The Studio is the part most owners picture: a name, a face, a voice and the answers you teach it. The Harness is the part that makes it dependable once real people start talking to it. It carries the model, the tools, the memory and the connections, and it holds each priced lane to a daily ceiling. The Harness page walks through both ways in: keeping the harness you already use, or starting with ours. It also links the manifest and the agent card other software reads. Open it, read the two short sections that match you, and decide which way you want to start.