Cline vs mini-swe-agent

Cline

Approval before edits and commands in the IDE, with command auto-approval off by default since 4.0.0. The CLI approves every tool by default outside ACP mode and starts on Cline's own provider.

mini-swe-agent

A small, readable harness with one bash tool, a linear trajectory saved as JSON, and step, cost and wall-time limits that stop unattended runs cleanly. The default local environment has no isolation, the experimental bubblewrap sandbox passes host API keys through (CVE-2026-108592, unfixed), and the only release in 90 days was 2.4.6 on 23 July 2026.

Cline

1. Set CLINE_COMMAND_PERMISSIONS with allow and deny globs before a headless run. The CLI approves every tool by default
2. Pick a provider with -P and a key, or run cline auth. The default provider needs a Cline sign-in
3. Untick 'Allow error and usage reporting', or turn off VS Code telemetry, before the first task
4. Pin the CLI version. 2.3.0 was a malicious publish
5. Keep the hub on 127.0.0.1 or set ROOM_SECRET, and run 3.0.30 or later

mini-swe-agent

1. Run with -y --exit-immediately for unattended use. Without --exit-immediately it waits for input when the agent finishes
2. Set MSWEA_CONFIGURED=true and MSWEA_MODEL_NAME first, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt
3. Read info.exit_status in the -o trajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally
4. For untrusted repositories use -c mini.yaml -c environment.environment_class=docker -c environment.image=<image>. The local and bubblewrap environments both expose host variables
5. Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command