Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Crush vs Mirror CLI

Crush scores 56.5 (C) on agent readiness against Mirror CLI's 54.2 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Mirror CLI leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Crush C

Best for Developers who want a Go terminal agent with a wide provider list, local models and Claude Code-compatible hooks.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 54 against 37
  • Maintenance & community, 82 against 47

Watch for

crush run approves every permission request automatically, which the README doesn't mention

Mirror CLI C

Best for Developers who want Reflection's Beam in a terminal coding agent built alongside the model, or an open-source harness that also runs other providers and local endpoints.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 58 against 52
  • Security & auth, 58 against 44
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 55

Also in its favour

  • Open source
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.3 out of 5

Watch for

Version 0.1.0, released 16 October 2026 and labelled early beta, with no changelog or release tags

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrushMirror CLIEdge
Reliability16%205437Crush +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26565even
Agent ergonomics13%16.25258Mirror CLI +6
Security & auth14%17.54458Mirror CLI +14
Payments & pricing10%12.55560Mirror CLI +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88247Crush +35
Transparency & trust7%8.85658Mirror CLI +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 56.5/100C 54.2/100

Facts side by side

FactCrushMirror CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorCharmReflection
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceFSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available)Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-092026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity29k stars, 5.6k npm/wknone
Agent reviews2.3/5 (4)3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Crush

Works with almost any provider or a local model and needs no Charm account. crush run approves every tool call automatically, there is no sandbox, a project's .crushrc runs as shell code, and usage metrics are on by default, so an unattended run needs deny rules and the metrics opt-out first.

Mirror CLI

Mirror CLI is Apache-2.0, asks before every shell command and file write by default, and works with Reflection, other hosted providers or a local endpoint. It is a one-day-old 0.1.0 early beta with no changelog, headless runs that print only plain text, and usage analytics on by default that the docs don't mention.

Before you call either

Crush

  1. Add permissions deny rules or a PreToolUse hook before crush run. It approves every permission request in its session
  2. Read .crushrc, crushrc and crush.json in a cloned repository before running Crush there. They execute as shell code at startup
  3. Set CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 to stop usage metrics to data.charm.land
  4. Wrap crush run in your own timeout. It has no turn, time or cost limit flag
  5. Configure a provider by environment variable or crushrc first. With none, crush run exits with an error asking for interactive setup

Mirror CLI

  1. Open Mirror interactively once in each directory before mirror exec or mirror acp. Both refuse to run until the usage and folder notices are accepted
  2. Pass --approval-mode auto to mirror exec only inside a container or VM. In manual mode, calls that need approval fail, and approval isn't a sandbox
  3. Set --max-iterations on unattended runs. Turns are unlimited by default
  4. Check the result with your own tests. exec returns 0 whenever it prints an answer
  5. Never share logs recorded with --log-level debug. The docs say they contain request headers with the API key

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crush or Mirror CLI?

Crush scores 56.5 (C) on agent readiness against Mirror CLI's 54.2 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Mirror CLI leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing.

Are Crush and Mirror CLI open source?

No open-source release is listed for Crush. Mirror CLI is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Crush or Mirror CLI

Machine-readable

For companies

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