Harness acquires Augment Code to bridge software engineering from idea to deployment

Autonomous software delivery platform Harness Inc. has acquired Augment Code Computing Inc., incorporating the team into their organization. Harness specializes in an AI-driven platform to help developers and operations teams, or DevOps, with the software delivery lifecycle. This includes automating building, testing, and deploying code across various environments using AI agents. These agents assist in generating workflows from plain text, detecting vulnerabilities, testing code, and troubleshooting production issues.

As part of the deal, Harness gains access to Cosmos, Augment Code's cloud-based AI code development platform. Cosmos serves as a coordinator for multiple AI agents, streamlining software engineering tasks and workflows. Other assets being acquired include Auggie command-line interface products, the Code Context Engine, and related technologies. Cosmos will be rebranded as Harness Cosmos Software Factory and will be responsible for automating engineering work from idea to code.

The co-founder and CEO of Harness, Jyoti Bansal, explained that the current process of turning an idea into code and then deploying it to production are separate tasks, often requiring manual intervention. Harness has previously focused on helping major enterprises safely transition code to production. Augment Code, on the other hand, has been dedicated to getting ideas into good code.

By combining their efforts, Harness aims to create a seamless "idea to deployment" experience, where AI agents handle various stages of the software development lifecycle.

After the acquisition, developers will still have the option to use their preferred coding tools. They can choose to adopt Harness Cosmos or use both platforms. This new integration will bring code assistance, generation, and maintenance into a single context, eliminating the need for separate testing and security dashboards. Augment Code co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Igor Ostrovsky, stated that the company's vision is to bring AI to the entire software development lifecycle, with AI agents working alongside engineers to increase automation. The focus will remain on having engineers only intervene when their expertise is truly required.