The Cognitive Harness: Deterministic Guardrails, Knapsack Token Budgets, and Autonomous Self-Tightening in Sampo AI OS V2

This empirical case study details the 4-layer Cognitive Harness engineered for Sampo AI OS V2. We present the formal architecture of context-aware Knapsack token budgeting, GBNF grammar-guided Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) sandboxing, and adversarial Critic-model validation. Operating as model-agnostic deterministic middleware, the harness executes zero-overhead static pre-checks in sub-1 millisecond, prevents context degradation, eliminates non-deterministic drift, and enforces zero-trust execution gates required for mission-critical autonomous agent workflows. Report identifier: CS-SAMPO-2026-W41-02Official portal: https://sampoaios.com