# Cursor CLI vs GitHub Copilot CLI

> GitHub Copilot CLI has a score of 57.9 (C) against Cursor CLI's 35.8 (F). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 33 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

GitHub Copilot CLI has a score of 57.9 (C) against Cursor CLI's 35.8 (F). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 33 points.

- Cursor CLI: grade F, 35.8/100, rank #441 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json
- GitHub Copilot CLI: grade C, 57.9/100, rank #286 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/github-copilot-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/github-copilot-cli.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Cursor CLI for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick GitHub Copilot CLI for reliability (+28), schema & documentation (+33), agent ergonomics (+30), security & auth (+14), payments & pricing (+15), maintenance & community (+15), transparency & trust (+8).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor CLI | GitHub Copilot CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 27 | 55 | GitHub Copilot CLI +28 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 39 | 72 | GitHub Copilot CLI +33 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 72 | GitHub Copilot CLI +30 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 60 | GitHub Copilot CLI +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 40 | GitHub Copilot CLI +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 77 | GitHub Copilot CLI +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 72 | GitHub Copilot CLI +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **35.8 · F** | **57.9 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor CLI | GitHub Copilot CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cursor | GitHub |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published | Proprietary, under the licence in the repository's `LICENSE.md`. Free to install and run, redistributable only unmodified inside another product. The repository holds the README, changelog and install script, not the source |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | none | 11k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Cursor CLI.** Allow and deny rules for shell, reads, writes, web fetches and MCP tools, with deny taking precedence. No CLI changelog, and versions are dates.

**GitHub Copilot CLI.** Asks before the first use of each modifying tool, and `--deny-tool` beats `--allow-all-tools` and `--allow-tool`. Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max interactions train GitHub's models by default since 24 April 2026.

## Before you call either

### Cursor CLI

1. Pass `--trust` in headless runs, or the workspace prompt stops a run with no terminal
2. Write deny rules in .cursor/cli.json before using `--force`. It runs any command they don't match
3. Don't use `--approve-mcps` in repositories you didn't write. Two 2025 CLI advisories came through MCP
4. Set `CURSOR_API_KEY` in CI. `agent login` opens a browser
5. Record `agent --version` with each run. Versions are dates and there's no CLI changelog to compare against

### GitHub Copilot CLI

1. Pass `--deny-tool` for anything destructive. It wins over `--allow-all-tools` and `--allow-tool`
2. Turn on the sandbox with `/sandbox enable` or `--sandbox`. It's off unless you opt in
3. Turn off model training in Copilot settings on Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max. It's on by default since 24 April 2026
4. Run 1.0.88 or later where enterprise policy matters. Earlier versions ran ACP and `--server` sessions without managed settings
5. Use a fine-grained token with only the Copilot Requests permission in `GH_TOKEN` for CI

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