# AXLR vs goose (slim)

> goose and AXLR score within a point of each other for agent harnesses, 71.3 and 70.6 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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goose and AXLR score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 71.3 (BB) and 70.6 (BB). Both do agent harnesses.

- AXLR: BB 70.6, rank #168 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/axlr.min.md
- goose: BB 71.3, rank #142 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/goose.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. Also No incidents deducted, where goose loses 5 points for them.
- goose, good for People and pipelines that want one agent across many model providers or local models, with recipes for repeatable jobs and a desktop app for non-engineers. Ahead on Reliability, 77 against 70; Security & auth, 77 against 62; Maintenance & community, 86 against 79; Transparency & trust, 67 against 55. Also No key needed to call it.

| Category | AXLR | goose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 77 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 80 | 81 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 83 | 82 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 77 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 86 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 55 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | AXLR | goose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Underpass AI | Agentic AI Foundation (originally Block) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder | Apache-2.0 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | 2026-10-27 |
| Popularity | 0 stars | 55k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, goose +15: 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.); goose 77 (Harness reading of the framework checklist, used for all five harnesses in this batch. 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. Usage data is off until the user agrees on first use, and the docs list what's collected and what isn't (30). Four modes (autonomous, smart approval, manual approval, chat only), per-tool always, ask or never rules, and an extension allowlist fetched from `GOOSE_ALLOWLIST`, which from 1.57.0 must be HTTPS and blocks installs when the policy can't be read, but autonomous is the default (the first-run prompt for the mode still preselects Auto in 1.57.0) and there's no sandbox, with the docs pointing to a VM or container (11). Pattern and optional ML prompt-injection detection and an adversary reviewer for shell calls, both off until turned on, plus a prompt-injection caution in SECURITY.md (11). Session logs, a diagnostics report and a Langfuse tracing guide (12). SECURITY.md with GitHub private reporting and an AAIF governance contact, one advisory published with a CVE, and a Scorecard workflow. A second CVE, CVE-2026-109561 (low, Manual Approval bypassed by persisted read-only annotations after Smart Approval, fixed in 1.44.0), was published by NVD on 12 October from a third party, with no goose advisory of its own. No bug bounty, and goose-docs.ai/.well-known/security.txt returned 404 on 6 and 17 October and 1 November (13).)
- Transparency & trust, goose +12: 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.); goose 67 (Apache-2.0 (30). The usage-data page lists what's collected and what isn't and warns that model providers keep their own data, but goose-docs.ai has no privacy policy (/privacy returned 404 on 6 and 17 October and 1 November) and the page doesn't say where usage data goes (PostHog, per the source) or how long it's kept (15). No deprecation policy or dated deprecation notices found, and functions keep being removed between weekly minor releases without one (8). Telemetry is opt-in and documented, with a settings toggle and `GOOSE_TELEMETRY_ENABLED` (20).)
- Reliability, goose +7: 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.); goose 77 (Read as a local package, which is how the 1 October dossier read it. Desktop builds and a CLI for macOS, Linux and Windows (a Windows NSIS installer from 1.56.0), Homebrew casks, a download script on GitHub releases, an npm package that installs the binary (@aaif/goose-acp) and a GHCR image, with Rust 1.94.1 as the minimum for source builds (20). A CI workflow runs on every push to main, with cargo-deny, cargo-machete, MCP and tool-call conformance and an OpenSSF Scorecard job beside it. The Actions page loaded on 1 October showed only passing runs from March 2026, and GitHub pages refused our requests on 6 and 17 October and 1 November, so the current state is unconfirmed (18). 266 to 271 open issues on 1 October, many from that week with no reply, including open reports that the default mode approves every tool call (#12567) and that schedules can overwrite each other (#12613), per the 1 October check, not re-read since (15). Weekly minor releases with notes written by a release-notes workflow whose sections are `Features`, `Bug Fixes`, `Improvements` and `Documentation`, with no breaking-change section. 1.55.0 dropped background subagents (`delegate(..., async: true)` and `GOOSE_MAX_BACKGROUND_TASKS`) and 1.57.0 dropped the developer tools that delegated file reads and terminal commands to an ACP editor, each edited out of the code and docs with no earlier notice (9). 1.57, stable (15).)
- Maintenance & community, goose +7: 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.); goose 86 (v1.57.0 tagged on 27 October 2026, after v1.56.0 on 22 October (30). 13 releases in the 90 days from 3 August, 1.46.0 (11 August) to 1.57.0, about one a week, plus GDK alpha tags (20). Issues move through a public board with Inbox and Ready columns and some new reports get a label within a day, but many of the week's reports had no reply on 1 October, and pull requests that don't implement a Ready issue are closed, per the 1 October check, not re-read since (15). Desktop, CLI, npm and GHCR builds ship from the same tag, and Python and Java SDK builds run in CI (13). cargo-deny, cargo-machete, Dependabot and Scorecard workflows, every GitHub Action pinned to a commit SHA since 29 September, and jsonwebtoken removed on 26 October to stop ignoring its cargo-deny advisories, with the current CI state unconfirmed (8).)