Prime Agent: A Self-Improving RLM Harness

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Abstract

Language models are sequential processors, but long-horizon agency requires external information and computation beyond model weights and active context. Prime Agent is an open-source harness for long-horizon evaluation and coding-agent workflows. A persistent IPython REPL follows the Recursive Language Model abstraction for programmatic context processing and test-time compute, while Continual Harness preserves histories, memories, skills, prompts, and subagent specifications across trajectories. Recursive subagents coordinate through direct agent-to-agent communication, and the Agents View lets humans inspect and manage daemon-backed sessions. Prime Agent standardizes execution, recovery, verification, and resource accounting while leaving strategy construction to the model. This low-friction, expressive membrane prevents harness failures from becoming model failures and pushes measurement toward the model's true maximal underlying capability. Prime Agent raises ARC-AGI-3 RHAE Best@1 from 30% to 95.5% and matches or exceeds native and popular harnesses across long-context coding, GPU-kernel generation, emulator construction, and autonomous nanoGPT speedruns. On Factorio, we find refinement allows for continuous technology progression and dedicated subagents enable parallelized work. Code is available at https://github.com/PrimeIntellect-ai/prime-agent.

Core Contributions

• A persistent IPython runtime implements the Recursive Language Model abstraction for programmatic context processing and test-time compute.
• Continual Harness preserves and refines histories, memories, skills, prompts, and subagent specifications across trajectories.
• Recursive subagents coordinate through direct agent-to-agent communication while humans inspect and manage sessions through the Agents View.
• A shared execution layer standardizes recovery, verification, and resource accounting without prescribing model strategy.
• Evaluations cover ARC-AGI-3, long-context coding, GPU-kernel generation, emulator construction, autonomous nanoGPT speedruns, and Factorio.

Publication history

BibTeX

@article{karten2026prime,
  title={Prime Agent: A Self-Improving RLM Harness},
  author={Karten, Seth and Zhang, Alex L. and Thomas, Kevin and Müller, Sebastian and Bakouch, Elie and Auras, Daniel and Senghaas, Mika and Obeid, Fares and Dunas, Konstantin and Hagemann, Johannes and Jaghouar, Sami},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.23552},
  year={2026}
}