# AXLR vs Cursor CLI (slim)

> AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) to Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-cursor-cli.md (~6,600 tokens) · this version ~3,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-cursor-cli.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-cursor-cli
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-01
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AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Cursor CLI leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- AXLR: BB 70.6, rank #168 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/axlr.min.md
- Cursor CLI: F 35.4, rank #1165 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.min.md
- AXLR, good 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 27; Schema & documentation, 80 against 39; Agent ergonomics, 83 against 42; Security & auth, 62 against 46; Payments & pricing, 60 against 25; Maintenance & community, 79 against 62. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Cursor CLI loses 5 points for them.
- Cursor CLI, good for Teams already on Cursor who want the same agent and rules in a terminal or CI and a hand-off to Cloud Agents. Ahead on Transparency & trust, 60 against 55.

| Category | AXLR | Cursor CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 27 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 80 | 39 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 83 | 42 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 46 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 25 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 62 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 55 | 60 |

| Fact (where they differ) | AXLR | Cursor CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Underpass AI | Cursor |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder | Proprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-03 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-29 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | 0 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 1.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, AXLR +43: 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.); Cursor CLI 27 (Local-package reading. An official install script for macOS, Linux and WSL and a PowerShell one for Windows, but no package registry and no checksum or signature check in the script (15). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). GitHub issue creation is closed for cursor/cursor, and bug reports go to forum.cursor.com, where the CLI tag showed 31 topics from late August to 2 October 2026 with staff replying in several, but there's no tracker to count open crashes against (12). Date-based versions (2026.09.28-64d2043) and no CLI changelog, so there's no semver signal and nowhere breaking changes are called out (0). Not 1.0 and not declared stable. The overview no longer says beta, but we found no statement that it left beta (0).)
- Schema & documentation, AXLR +41: AXLR 80 (An OpenAPI 3.1 file for the service (15 paths, 23 schemas, `mutualTLS` security scheme, `additionalProperties: false` on request bodies), a checked proto for the gRPC service, and the 19 MCP tools built from the same shared schemas (25). No llms.txt on either site (404), and the docs site renders HTML; the Markdown sources are in the repository (5). The product contract tables what each of the four interfaces can and cannot do, the work-mode table states each mode's purpose and tool policy, the transport parity ledger names every verb's arguments and behaviour, and `axlr_tools` tells the model to look for a tool before forging one (15). Typed inputs throughout, `Idempotency-Key` 16 to 128 safe ASCII characters, `expected_revision` a positive integer, policy levels, sandbox profiles and egress values enumerated, budgets as four integers, and the service rejects unknown fields, invalid types and bodies over 4 MiB (14). Examples in every guide, an error shape of `code`, `message` and `request_id`, named codes (`409 idempotency_conflict`, `400 invalid_cursor`, `422 invalid_policy`, `invalid_budget`, `sandbox_unavailable`, `not_ready`, `invalid_id`), a gRPC status mapping, and the worker's five statuses and three exit codes; no single error reference page (14). `/v1` routes and an OpenAPI version of 0.1.0 against a 0.15.0 release, and no changelog beyond the dated notes inside the docs (7). 25+5+15+14+14+7 = 80.); Cursor CLI 39 (Framework reading. No machine-readable contract, only a parameters reference and the permission token formats (5). cursor.com/llms.txt lists the CLI pages with Markdown twins (10). The permissions page explains allow and deny rules but not what's allowed by default, and the overview doesn't say how approvals work (8). Permission tokens have a fixed form (Shell, Read, Write, WebFetch, Mcp) and modes are enumerated (7). Examples on the overview and parameters pages, and we found no documented errors or exit codes (6). No CLI changelog, and versions are dates (3).)
- Agent ergonomics, AXLR +41: 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.); Cursor CLI 42 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP tools can be allowed or denied per server and tool with Mcp(server:tool), and we found nothing on deferred loading (10). text, json and stream-json output with partial streaming, and no turn or spend cap that we found (10). No documented error format or exit codes (5). `--resume` and `--continue` (12). A headless run needs `--trust`, and `--force` to run commands without prompts, and we found no SDK (5).)
- Payments & pricing, AXLR +35: 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.); Cursor CLI 25 (Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices are public, but included usage isn't given in dollars or requests (10). Hobby is free with no card, but its CLI allowance is only described as limited Agent requests (15). A person signs in through a browser to use it or to get an API key (0).)
- Maintenance & community, AXLR +17: 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.); Cursor CLI 62 (Version 2026.09.28-64d2043, dated 28 September 2026 (30). Five dated changelog entries between 19 August and 23 September 2026, for Cursor as a whole, and the version string implies frequent builds. Judgement call, since none of the entries is CLI-only (20). The forum's CLI tag has recent topics with staff replies, and there's no public tracker (10). No SDK found (0). No public CI, and an installer without integrity checks (2).)
- Security & auth, AXLR +16: 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.); Cursor CLI 46 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. We found no description of what the CLI sends home. Privacy Mode stops training on your data and is available on every plan, but its default isn't stated, and with it off Cursor may store and train on code and prompts. Headless runs use a long-lived API key (8). Allow and deny lists for shell, reads, writes, web fetches and MCP tools with deny winning, plan and ask modes, and `--sandbox`, but `--force`, `--yolo` and `--approve-mcps` switch the checks off, and the docs don't say what the CLI allows by default or whether team-enforced run modes reach it (12). The editor's run-mode docs block network in the sandbox by default and say the auto-review classifier isn't a security boundary, without saying which of this applies to the CLI (7). Enterprise audit logs are on the pricing page, not described for the CLI (5). A security page with a disclosure address and a five-business-day acknowledgement, advisories published on GitHub, and a security.txt contact, but no bug bounty that we found (14). SOC 2 and ISO 27001 aren't scored on the framework reading.)