# AXLR vs GitHub Copilot CLI (slim)

> AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) to GitHub Copilot CLI's 58.4 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-github-copilot-cli.md (~6,500 tokens) · this version ~3,030 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-github-copilot-cli.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-github-copilot-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 GitHub Copilot CLI's 58.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. GitHub Copilot 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
- GitHub Copilot CLI: C 58.4, rank #685 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/github-copilot-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 55; Schema & documentation, 80 against 72; Agent ergonomics, 83 against 72; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Open source; No incidents deducted, where GitHub Copilot CLI loses 5 points for them.
- GitHub Copilot CLI, good for Developers and teams already on GitHub and Copilot who want an agent that knows their repositories and issues, and a cloud agent that opens pull requests. Ahead on Transparency & trust, 71 against 55.

| Category | AXLR | GitHub Copilot CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 80 | 72 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 83 | 72 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 63 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 77 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 55 | 71 |

| Fact (where they differ) | AXLR | GitHub Copilot CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Underpass AI | GitHub |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder | Proprietary, under the licence in the repository's `LICENSE.md`. Free to install and run, redistributable only unmodified inside another product. The repository holds the README, changelog and install script, not the source |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-04-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-04-27 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 0 stars | 11k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, AXLR +20: 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.); GitHub Copilot CLI 40 (Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices and the AI credit price ($0.01) are public without a login (20). Copilot Free includes the CLI with 50 chat requests a month and no card (20). A person signs in to GitHub or creates the token, and we didn't confirm whether bring-your-own-key providers work without a Copilot sign-in (0).)
- Transparency & trust, GitHub Copilot CLI +16: AXLR 55 (Apache-2.0 with a NOTICE (30). No privacy policy or terms on underpassai.com or axlr.underpassai.com; the docs' 'Where data goes' and 'Diagnostics and privacy' sections say that model requests go to OpenRouter, the local server or the native API, that Jev sends text to TypeSafe only when on, that sessions live under `$XDG_STATE_HOME/axlr`, that payload capture is off by default and redacted when on, and that traces are deleted after 30 days; nothing covers the engine downloads' or the catalog registry's handling of a client's requests (15). No deprecation policy; pre-1.0 changes are dated inline in the docs and the product contract records the 5 October 2026 retirement of the first skill catalogue after the fact (6). No telemetry to disclose, and the docs say in two places what leaves the machine and how to stop payload capture, though no single page says there is no telemetry (17). 30+15+6+17 = 68.); GitHub Copilot CLI 71 (Proprietary licence with clear terms for running and redistributing (15). The data-use page dates the training change (24 April 2026), says which plans it covers and how to opt out, and says Business and Enterprise data isn't used, but we didn't find retention periods for CLI sessions (18). On 15 October 2026 GitHub gave dated notice that Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra leave all Copilot experiences on 16 November 2026, 32 days later, with a named alternative for each. Breaking changes are marked in a dated changelog. There's no written deprecation policy or notice period, the same reading as openai-codex and gemini-cli (15). OpenTelemetry export is documented, but the product telemetry the CLI sends isn't described and we found no switch for it (6). 15+18+15+6 = 54.)
- Reliability, AXLR +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.); GitHub Copilot CLI 55 (Local-package reading. npm, Homebrew, WinGet and an install script for Linux, macOS and Windows, with PowerShell 6 or newer named for Windows, though the npm package declares no engines (20). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published, and the repository holds only the README, licence, changelog and install script (0). About 1,900 open issues and 28 open pull requests, labelled by area and platform with a triage label and no-response automation, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 17 October (12). A dated changelog for every release, with breaking changes marked BREAKING, though they ship in 1.0.x patch versions (8). 1.0 since March 2026, and npm `latest` (1.0.98) now matches the changelog (15). Same reading as Claude Code and Cursor CLI, which are also closed source. 20+0+12+8+15 = 55.)
- Agent ergonomics, AXLR +11: 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.); GitHub Copilot CLI 72 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. `--available-tools` and `--excluded-tools` shape the tool list and `--deny-tool` removes tools, and MCP tool discovery recovers without a restart (20). `--max-autopilot-continues` caps autopilot, and a turn timeout applies to background work in `-p` (15). JSON output, and a 2026 release replaced a misleading auth error with the real cause (12). `--resume` and `--continue`, and permission prompts survive a resumed session (15). An SDK exists, per the changelog, but we didn't check its languages, and a headless run needs explicit allow flags to do anything (10).)
- Schema & documentation, AXLR +8: 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.); GitHub Copilot CLI 72 (Framework reading. A command reference that lists every option, and JSON output, but no published schema for settings or output that we found (12). docs.github.com/llms.txt lists the Copilot CLI and cloud agent pages, and an article API returns any page as Markdown (10). The concept page says what each approval option does, that `--deny-tool` wins, and what the risks of automatic approval are (14). Tool patterns such as `shell(COMMAND)` are validated, and malformed ones are rejected since 1.0.x (10). Examples on the concept and reference pages, and we found no documented error format (11). A dated changelog per release with breaking changes marked (15).)