Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Antigravity CLI vs AXLR

AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Antigravity CLI's 57.6 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1000 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Antigravity CLI C

Best for Developers on Google AI plans or Gemini Enterprise who want a terminal agent with a sandbox on by default and access to several model families, depending on plan.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

Closed source. The repository holds the README, changelog and examples, with no source and no licence file

AXLR BB

Best for A program or bot that needs one governed execution at a time, with a policy, a budget, a sandbox profile and correlation ids it sets itself and a result object it reads back, on a machine it controls, with the model on OpenRouter, a local server or a native Anthropic or OpenAI key.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 43
  • Agent ergonomics, 83 against 78
  • Security & auth, 62 against 53
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 68

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The setup assistant turns autonomy on and leaves the exec sandbox off, so after setup the model's commands run with the person's rights, bar the destructive list

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing AXLR +30

Antigravity CLI 30

Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol in the docs, the pricing page or the plans page (0). Plan prices are public without a login, at $20 a month for Google AI Pro, $100 and $200 for Ultra and $30 a seat for Enterprise Standard. Consumption is priced at Gemini Enterprise rates, and those rates were not read, so this is plan-level pricing (10). The pricing page lists a $0 individual plan that needs no subscription. None of the pages read asks for a payment method, but the account flow was not tested, so the point is taken from the page (20). Sign-in is a browser flow with a Google account, or a Gemini API key set by hand, and the CLI won't start unauthenticated (0).

AXLR 60

No payment protocol (0). Free and Apache-2.0 with nothing to buy, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines by the self-hosted rule, since the docs say what you pay your model provider, the free route needs no card, and it runs local models with no signup at all, the JSON worker without any model. 0+20+20+20 = 60.

Reliability AXLR +27

Antigravity CLI 43

Local-package reading. An official installer for macOS, Linux and Windows, with an Android build for Termux, that checks a SHA-512 checksum against Google's release manifest before it installs (20). No public CI or test suite, since the repository holds no source and no workflows, only issue templates (0). Open issues and pull requests could not be read from this session, so the crash and regression line is unchecked (0). Version 1.3.2 is the latest, and version 1.2.10 changed headless exit codes for streamed model errors from 0 to 3 under a Fixed heading, with no breaking-change heading (8). Version 1.x, so stable under the rule (15).

AXLR 70

Read as a local package, as claude-code, goose, opencode and openhands were. Release archives for Linux, macOS and Windows on amd64 and arm64 with a .sha256 beside each, a GHCR image, an OCI Helm chart and source builds with Go 1.26, all stated in the docs; no Homebrew, npm or apt route (20). CI on main runs vet, race tests and a coverage gate above 80 per cent for both modules, with the sandbox tests required under bubblewrap, and the last ten runs on main to 1 November 2026 all passed; the release workflow tests on six native runners (25). 10 open issues, all opened by the founder on 19 and 21 October 2026 as trackers for service work (work modes, plugins, the sandbox setting, cost limits), none from an outside user and none a crash report, 0 open pull requests and about 100 merged; with 0 stars there is nobody else to report, so the handling of outside reports is untested (20). Tags are semver 0.x and the docs date each behaviour change inline ("until 14 October 2026…"), but the 21 releases have empty notes, there is no CHANGELOG.md, and the product contract records one retirement (the seven 1.0 skill definitions on 5 October 2026) without a notice period (5). Pre-1.0, which the README calls an evolving project (0). 20+25+20+5+0 = 70.

Maintenance & community AXLR +11

Antigravity CLI 68

1.3.2 on 8 October 2026 (30). 47 numbered releases in the changelog from 1.1.2 (13 July) to 1.3.2 (20). Responsiveness rests on a public changelog, a community forum linked from the terms and the GitHub repository, but no replies could be read (8). The google-antigravity Python SDK, version 0.1.21 released on 7 October 2026 under Apache-2.0, is a separate package and no SDK for the CLI itself was found (10). No public CI or dependency list for the CLI, since the source is not published (0).

AXLR 79

v0.15.0 on 2026-10-25, with commits on main to 2026-11-01 (30). 21 releases between 4 and 25 October 2026 (20). One maintainer (368 of 399 commits, the rest by two agent accounts), 10 open issues that are his own trackers with no comments, about 100 merged pull requests and no outside report to measure a reply against (15). Not in the MCP registry; the Go module and a proto to generate clients from are the only client code, beside the GHCR image and Helm chart (5). Go 1.26 toolchain pinned, release actions pinned by commit SHA, a go-licenses check that the third-party bundle matches the dependency graph, and CI passing on main (9). 30+20+15+5+9 = 79.

Security & auth AXLR +9

Antigravity CLI 53

Framework reading (credentials and telemetry defaults, approvals and sandboxing, guardrails, audit, security programme), five lines. Credentials are a Google account sign-in kept in the operating system keyring, or a Gemini API key in settings.json. Interactions are collected until the user opts out, and the settings page does not state the default (10). The Default preset sandboxes terminal commands on macOS and Linux, hides ~/.ssh and .env, limits network access to approved domains and asks before MCP tools run, with allow rules by server and tool. The sandbox is labelled preview, the Turbo preset turns it off, and Windows uses the older model (18). Hooks run before and after tool calls and can block one, and the CLI shows a Reason line when a hook flags an action. No documented defence against prompt injection in fetched content was found (7). The CLI log records model resolution, and approvals show in the conversation, but no exportable audit log was found (10). google.com has a valid security.txt with reports to g.co/vulnz, antigravity.google serves none, and no CLI advisory appears in the changelog. The advisory page was not reachable, so that part is unchecked (8).

AXLR 62

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other four harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. No product telemetry in the console source (the outbound hosts are openrouter.ai, api.anthropic.com, api.openai.com, a configured local server, api.github.com and github.com for engine downloads, and registry.underpassai.com for the signed catalog index) or in the docs; payload capture is off by default since 9 October 2026, traces omit prompts and credentials, model keys are never given to commands or plugins, and Jev sends requests and answers to TypeSafe only when on, which the setup assistant does when TYPESAFE_API_KEY is set, with a notice on stderr (27). Approval cards, a destructive list that always asks, four work modes, a policy level per execution, a bubblewrap or container sandbox with an enforced egress allow list, and a service that approves nothing but reads. Against that, the setup assistant writes autonomous: true, exec_sandbox is off by default, forged tools run with the person's rights, and the README says the console and worker are not sandboxes (13). Forged tools are refused when a file changes since the forge, a policy forbids calls outside the model, and the docs say MCP tools keep their own side effects, but no prompt-injection guidance was found and MCP results reach the model unmarked (6). The service keeps an event journal, audit records, a receipt with the SHA-256 of every call's arguments and outcome, and correlation ids on every event; the console keeps session records, a redacted app log and /session (14). No SECURITY.md, no security.txt on either host, no advisories, no bug bounty; release checksums and a minisign-signed catalog are integrity, not a programme (2). 27+13+6+14+2 = 62.

Agent ergonomics AXLR +5

Antigravity CLI 78

Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP tools can be allowed or refused by server and tool, and a 20,000-token budget for user rules stops large rule sets from crowding out skills and MCP tools (16). No turn or spend cap appears in the flag reference, and --print-timeout sets a wall-clock limit only (10). The JSON envelope carries a status field and token usage, and the stream-json result event carries token counts (16). Exit codes 0, 1, 2 and 3 are documented, but a tool soft-denied in headless mode still exits 0 (14). --continue and --conversation resume earlier runs (14). A Python SDK on PyPI, which is a separate package, and no second SDK language for the CLI (8).

AXLR 83

Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what a program driving it has to supply. Six local tools plus the host's bookkeeping tools; work modes and an execution policy hide the tools a run may not use, axlr_catalog searches the catalog instead of loading it, forged tools keep the request prefix for the prompt cache, and a context cap of 75,000 prompt tokens opens a successor session (20). local_read, local_search and local_list page with offset, next_offset and max_bytes; StreamEvents takes after, max_events (1 to 256) and wait_ms; a budget per execution in seconds, requests, tool calls and dollars; 32 tool calls a turn and max_session_usd (20). The --exec run ends in one result line with a status, the pending call, every call's outcome and the usage, and exits 0, 3 or 1; service errors carry codes an agent can act on; a budget stop says which limit (budget: requests 20 reached) and leaves the session resumable (16). Idempotency-Key on every turn, approval and direct call with cross-transport replay, expected_revision on decisions, expected_sha256 on worker writes, and an interrupted effectful call left uncertain for an operator rather than retried (19). One command runs a task, but the first launch needs an OpenRouter key or a local server, the service needs a CA, a principals file and remote KMP and MADE before a first session, and the only SDK is the Go library (8). 20+20+16+19+8 = 83.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAntigravity CLIAXLREdge
Reliability16%204370AXLR +27
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27880AXLR +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.27883AXLR +5
Security & auth14%17.55362AXLR +9
Payments & pricing10%12.53060AXLR +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86879AXLR +11
Transparency & trust7%8.85355AXLR +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 57.6/100BB 70.6/100

Facts side by side

FactAntigravity CLIAXLR
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorGoogleUnderpass AI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary. The repository holds the README, changelog and examples, with no source and no licence file. Use is under the Google Antigravity Additional Terms of Service, the Google Terms of Service and the Privacy PolicyApache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-082026-10-25
Terms last updatedno date givenno document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-01no document linked
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot read yet
Popularitynone0 stars

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Antigravity CLI

Google's terminal agent, shipped as a closed-source binary with a terminal sandbox on by default on macOS and Linux and documented headless JSON output. Interactions are used to improve Google products unless users opt out, and a headless run exits 0 when a tool is denied.

AXLR

A pre-1.0 Go harness with an unusually complete service contract, mutual TLS with principal roles, required idempotency keys, a policy, budget and sandbox per execution, and a result object a program can read. The console's defaults after setup are autonomy on and no sandbox, the project has one maintainer and no outside users yet, and releases carry no notes.

Before you call either

Antigravity CLI

  1. Read the status field from --output-format json and read stderr too. A tool refused for lack of approval still exits 0
  2. Pre-approve each shell command and tool a headless run needs with action(target) rules under permissions.allow in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/settings.json, because headless runs cannot ask
  3. Export GEMINI_API_KEY after setting modelProvider to gemini. The CLI won't start when the key is missing, and setting the variable alone has no effect
  4. Turn off Enable Telemetry in the Account settings before running on private repositories if Interactions should not be used for product improvement
  5. Set --print-timeout explicitly. The docs give a five-minute default, while agy --help shows 0s

AXLR

  1. Before the first prompt, set approvals.autonomous to false or run with --approve none, and turn exec_sandbox.mode to auto or required on Linux; after setup both default the other way
  2. Drive a run with axlr-tui --exec --json --policy <file> --budget <file> --sandbox <file> and read only the last result line; exit 3 means a call waits for --decide approve|deny with --session <id>
  3. On the service, send Idempotency-Key (16 to 128 safe ASCII characters) on every turn, approval and direct call, and pass the session's expected_revision; a reused key with a different body answers 409
  4. A local model must return native tool calls (llama.cpp with --jinja, vLLM with --enable-auto-tool-choice); set context_tokens on the entry and OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH for Ollama
  5. Leave TYPESAFE_API_KEY unset unless you want the setup assistant to switch Jev on, which sends requests and final answers to TypeSafe

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Antigravity CLI or AXLR?

AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Antigravity CLI's 57.6 (C), and leads in every scored category.

Are Antigravity CLI and AXLR open source?

No open-source release is listed for Antigravity CLI. AXLR is open source (Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder).

Other comparisons with Antigravity CLI or AXLR

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.