# Start a chat with any harness, not only an agent

> The New chat picker lists active harnesses, including Generic, Base and custom ones, next to agents, so a chat no longer needs a placeholder agent.

Source: <https://everruns.com/docs/changelog/2026-08-21-chat-with-harnesses/>

Date: 2026-08-21
Products: Platform, Cloud
Category: Feature
Available: In 0.21.0
Pull request: everruns/everruns#3262

**New chat** now shows two labelled groups, **Harnesses** and **Agents**. Pick any active harness, such as Generic, Base or one of your custom harnesses, to start a chat bound directly to it. Before, the picker listed agents plus a single hard-coded Platform Chat option, so chatting with a harness meant creating an otherwise empty agent.

The thread names the harness as its counterpart and appears in the Chats list like any other chat.

See [Harnesses](https://everruns.com/docs/features/harnesses/), [Generic harness](https://everruns.com/docs/built-ins/harnesses/generic/) and [#3262](https://github.com/everruns/everruns/pull/3262).