# CLI Manager vs Muse Code

> CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) to Muse Code's 61.3 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-muse-code
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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-muse-code.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-14

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Muse Code's 61.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Muse Code leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- CLI Manager: grade B, 65.8/100, rank #329 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cli-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cli-manager.json
- Muse Code: grade C, 61.3/100, rank #505 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/muse-code.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/muse-code.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 243 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 45
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

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

### Muse Code (C)

Good for: Developers who want Meta's Muse models, Muse Wonder Full included, in a terminal or CI agent with the sandbox and approvals on from the first run.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 63
- Security & auth, 67 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 62

Watch for: Closed source, with no public CI or issue tracker for the CLI found and release notes that carry no dates


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | CLI Manager | Muse Code | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 45 | CLI Manager +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 84 | CLI Manager +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 79 | Muse Code +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 67 | Muse Code +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | CLI Manager +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 75 | Muse Code +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 57 | Muse Code +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.8 · B** | **61.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CLI Manager | Muse Code |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | Meta |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary binary, used under the Meta Model API Terms of Service, which cover Meta's coding harness. Subscriptions are also under the Meta Subscription Terms of Service. The TypeScript and Python SDKs in the linked repository are MIT. |
| Tools exposed | 12 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | couldn't be read |
| 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 | 63k npm/wk |

## 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.

**Muse Code.** Muse Code runs with approvals and an OS sandbox on by default, per-host network approval, an append-only event log and a headless mode with documented exit codes. It is the only route to Muse Wonder Full. It is closed source with undated release notes and no free route, and subscriptions allow training on code unless Contributor mode is turned off.

## 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

### Muse Code

1. Set `META_API_KEY` for headless runs. Browser sign-in isn't available in CI or for Meta Managed Accounts
2. Gate on your own test command, not the exit code. `muse exec` returns 0 when the turn completes even if tests still fail
3. Pass `--max-model-steps` on unattended runs so a stuck task can't loop
4. Prefer `--disable-approval` to `--yolo` in CI so the sandbox stays on. On Linux the runner needs a working bubblewrap and a non-musl build
5. Turn Contributor mode off in `/settings` before a subscription session touches private code

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, CLI Manager or Muse Code?

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Muse Code's 61.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Muse Code leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and maintenance & community.

### Are CLI Manager and Muse Code open source?

CLI Manager is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Muse Code.


## For agents

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

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