# Auggie CLI vs Harness

> Harness scores 60.3 (C) to Auggie CLI's 50.8 (D) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

Harness scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Auggie CLI's 50.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Auggie CLI leads on reliability. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- Auggie CLI: grade D, 50.8/100, rank #872 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/auggie.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/auggie.json
- Harness: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #573 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Auggie CLI (D)

Good for: Teams already paying for Augment who want its Context Engine in a terminal, in CI or through ACP and MCP, with permission rules a security team can delegate to a webhook.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 43 against 35

Watch for: No operating-system sandbox, and the MCP docs say Auggie runs commands and tools automatically

### Harness (C)

Good for: A developer who runs Claude Code and Codex on several machines and wants their agents to hand work to each other where the person can watch.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 67
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 65
- Security & auth, 57 against 47
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser and an experimental account switch, off by default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Auggie CLI | Harness | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 43 | 35 | Auggie CLI +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 85 | Harness +18 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 82 | Harness +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 47 | 57 | Harness +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 40 | Harness +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 60 | Harness +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 68 | Harness +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.8 · D** | **60.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Auggie CLI | Harness |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Harness (formerly Augment Code) | Autonomous, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary. The licence from Augment Computing, Inc. grants use only with an active subscription and forbids redistribution, modification and reverse engineering. The GitHub repository holds the README, changelog, examples and issue tracker, not the source | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-08-21 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated |  |  |
| Privacy policy last updated |  |  |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 16k npm/wk | 1.3k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Auggie CLI.** Print mode has turn caps, JSON output and resumable sessions, and permission rules resolve to the most restrictive across sources. Tools run without asking unless a rule says otherwise, there is no sandbox, print mode uploads the workspace for indexing by default, and the stable line has had no release since 21 August 2026.

**Harness.** An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on this or another of their machines, through documented CLI commands and seven annotated MCP tools with exit codes. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental switch that is off by default, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by default.

## Before you call either

### Auggie CLI

1. Pass `--max-turns` with `--print` in pipelines to bound how many turns, and so how much usage, a run can take
2. Commit deny rules to .augment/settings.json before an unattended run. Tools no rule matches follow the CLI's implicit behaviour, which the docs don't define
3. Add secrets and data directories to .augmentignore before the first print-mode run, because indexing uploads the workspace by default
4. Use a service account token in CI on team and Enterprise plans. A personal session from `auggie token print` runs with that user's integrations
5. Pin the version in CI. `latest` is 0.x, while `preview` and `daemon` carry 1.x prereleases whose permission rules ignore some legacy tool names

### Harness

1. Run `harness whoami` first. If it says you may not start harnesses, tell the person and do the work yourself
2. Ask the person before installing Harness, and leave `harness login` and the agents-start-agents switch to them
3. Treat exit 5 as final and do not retry. Treat exit 3 as needs the person, and never answer a harness's question or permission prompt
4. Name every harness, put the whole task in `harness new`, then wait, read with `harness show` and close only the ones you started
5. Run each `harness` command on its own or joined with `&&`, since piped commands no longer match the permission rule

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Auggie CLI or Harness?

Harness scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Auggie CLI's 50.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Auggie CLI leads on reliability.

### Are Auggie CLI and Harness open source?

No open-source release is listed for Auggie CLI. Harness is open source (MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-harness-autonomous.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-harness-autonomous.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "auggie", "b": "harness-autonomous"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare auggie harness-autonomous`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/auggie.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json

## Other comparisons with Auggie CLI or Harness

- [Agent Zero vs Auggie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-auggie.md)
- [Aider vs Auggie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-auggie.md)
- [Amp vs Auggie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-auggie.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Auggie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-auggie.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Claude Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-claude-code.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-cline.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Crush](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-crush.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-devin.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-goose.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-harness2.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Jules](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-jules.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-junie.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Kimi Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-kimi-code-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Mistral Vibe CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-mistral-vibe-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-opencode.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-openhands.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-warp.md)
- [Amp vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs CLI Manager](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-cli-manager.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-paperclip.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-parallax-agents.md)
- [Claude Code vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Cline vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Crush vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Devin vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Droid CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [goose vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Harness vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Harness vs Jules](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-jules.md)
- [Harness vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-junie.md)
- [Harness vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Kimi Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kimi-code-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Mistral Vibe CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-mistral-vibe-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Harness vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-opencode.md)
- [Harness vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openhands.md)
- [Harness vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paperclip.md)
- [Harness vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-parallax-agents.md)
- [Harness vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Harness vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Harness vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Harness vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-warp.md)

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