# CLI Manager vs Harness

> CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) to Harness's 60.3 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
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- Updated: 2026-10-17

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- CLI Manager: grade B, 65.8/100, rank #341 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cli-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cli-manager.json
- Harness: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #570 of 1133. 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 331 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 35
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

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

### 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:
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 63
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

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 | CLI Manager | Harness | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 35 | CLI Manager +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 85 | CLI Manager +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 82 | Harness +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 57 | CLI Manager +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | CLI Manager +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 60 | CLI Manager +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 68 | Harness +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.8 · B** | **60.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CLI Manager | Harness |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | Autonomous, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 12 | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 |  |
| 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 | 1.3k stars |
| 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.

**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

### 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

### 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, CLI Manager or Harness?

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

### Are CLI Manager and Harness open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with CLI Manager or Harness

- [Amp vs CLI Manager](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cli-manager.md)
- [Amp vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs CLI Manager](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-cli-manager.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Claude Code vs CLI Manager](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cli-manager.md)
- [Claude Code vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-cline.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-devin.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [CLI Manager vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [CLI Manager vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-goose.md)
- [CLI Manager vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-muse-code.md)
- [CLI Manager vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-opencode.md)
- [CLI Manager vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-openhands.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-paperclip.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-parallax-agents.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Cline vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-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 Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kiro-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 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)

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