# CLI Manager vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

> CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) to DeepSeek Harness's 49.2 (D) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- CLI Manager: grade B, 65.8/100, rank #342 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cli-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cli-manager.json
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh): grade D, 49.2/100, rank #909 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepseek-harness.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepseek-harness.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

### CLI Manager (B)

Good for: A developer on macOS who runs several coding agents and wants another agent to start and watch sessions where the person can see and step in.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 68 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 77
- Security & auth, 58 against 40

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where DeepSeek Harness (dsh) loses 6 points for them

Watch for: Once switched on, the API can read, type into and close every session in the app, including the user's own

### DeepSeek Harness (dsh) (D)

Good for: Developers who use DeepSeek models and want a scriptable harness with ACP, a JSON event stream and a Python SDK.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 68 against 63
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 62

Also in its favour:
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for: By default each request to DeepSeek's official API carries the session log, including message text, tool arguments and results, up to 8 MiB a request


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | CLI Manager | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 33 | CLI Manager +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 77 | CLI Manager +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 68 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 40 | CLI Manager +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 71 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 50 | CLI Manager +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -6 | |
| **Total** | | **65.8 · B** | **49.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CLI Manager | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | DeepSeek |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 12 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 15 stars | 245k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**CLI Manager.** An agent can open visible terminal sessions, type into them, wait and read the screen through 12 typed MCP tools or a documented REST API, and the user can take any session back. The API reaches every open session once enabled, the app runs only on macOS, and none of the last 35 CI runs on the main branch passed.

**DeepSeek Harness (dsh).** Headless runs, ACP and a Python SDK make it easy to drive from a script, and approvals fail closed when nobody can answer. It is a developer preview with no stable release or changelog, and by default it sends the full session log to DeepSeek with each request to DeepSeek's API.

## Before you call either

### CLI Manager

1. Ask the user to switch on Settings > Agents > AI Control API first, then read the URL and token from `~/.climanager/control-api.json`
2. On `409 awaiting_input`, read the screen and answer with `keys` such as ["down","enter"]. Leave folder-trust and permission choices to the user
3. Stop using a session on `409 disconnected`. The user took it back
4. Treat `timedOut: true` from `wait` as still running, not as a failure, and wait again
5. Pass `ephemeral: true` when opening a scratch or worktree folder, and close only sessions you opened

### DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

1. Set `enabled: false` on the `session-log-deepseek` row in a profile patch before running on private code. Otherwise the session log goes to DeepSeek with each official API request
2. Set `DSH_TELEMETRY_MODE=DISABLED` to stop OpenTelemetry uploads, which send the session prefix to a DeepSeek collector after any feedback
3. Treat exit code 1 and the `turn_end` reason as failure. A `--json` stream can end with a `final` event for a failed run
4. Run in a disposable container or VM. The sandbox doesn't confine reads or network, and SAFETY.md says the project has had no security audit
5. Pin the version. npm `latest` (0.2.0-rc.2) and `next` (0.2.1-rc.2) differ, DeepSeek's changelog asks for 0.2.1-rc.1 or later, and the README warns of breaking changes

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, CLI Manager or DeepSeek Harness (dsh)?

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

### Are CLI Manager and DeepSeek Harness (dsh) open source?

Yes. CLI Manager is open source (MIT). DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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