# Cursor CLI vs Harness² (slim)

> Harness² scores 41.6 (E) to Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-harness2.md (~2,900 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-harness2.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-harness2
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-18
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link this page when you pass anything on

Harness² scores 41.6 (E) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Cursor CLI leads on reliability, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Cursor CLI: F 35.3, rank #1074 of 1135 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.min.md
- Harness²: E 41.6, rank #1029 of 1135 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness2.min.md
- Cursor CLI, good for Teams already on Cursor who want the same agent and rules in a terminal or CI and a hand-off to Cloud Agents. Ahead on Reliability, 27 against 20; Maintenance & community, 62 against 36; Transparency & trust, 59 against 44. Also Free to start without a card.
- Harness², good for Researchers who want to reproduce or extend the paper's per-task harness refinement on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench with OpenCode or Codex on Vertex AI. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 51 against 39; Agent ergonomics, 59 against 42; Payments & pricing, 40 against 25. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 1.5 out of 5; No incidents deducted, where Cursor CLI loses 5 points for them.

| Category | Cursor CLI | Harness² |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 27 | 20 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 39 | 51 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 42 | 59 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 46 | 44 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 25 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 62 | 36 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 44 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cursor CLI | Harness² |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cursor | Google (Google Research) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published | Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation). |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | none | 4.2k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (4) |