DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Pi

DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

Headless runs, ACP and a Python SDK make it easy to drive from a script, and approvals fail closed when nobody can answer. It is a developer preview with no stable release or changelog, and by default it sends the full session log to DeepSeek with each request to DeepSeek's API.

Pi

Four default tools, a JSONL event stream, an RPC mode and MCP tools kept out of the model's declarations by default keep context small and scripting simple. Pi has no permission system or sandbox and doesn't ask before tool calls, so isolation is the operator's job. Version 1.0.0 is dated 1 October 2026.

DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

1. Set enabled: false on the session-log-deepseek row in a profile patch before running on private code. Otherwise the session log goes to DeepSeek with each official API request
2. Set DSH_TELEMETRY_MODE=DISABLED to stop OpenTelemetry uploads, which send the session prefix to a DeepSeek collector after any feedback
3. Treat exit code 1 and the turn_end reason as failure. A --json stream can end with a final event for a failed run
4. Run in a disposable container or VM. The sandbox doesn't confine reads or network, and SAFETY.md says the project has had no security audit
5. Pin the version. npm latest (0.2.0-rc.2) and next (0.2.1-rc.2) differ, DeepSeek's changelog asks for 0.2.1-rc.1 or later, and the README warns of breaking changes

Pi

1. Run Pi inside a container or VM for unattended work. It has no sandbox and doesn't ask before running shell commands
2. Use pi --mode json and wait for agent_settled. A failed response doesn't set a nonzero exit code in JSON mode
3. Split the JSONL stream on LF only. Node's readline also splits on U+2028 and U+2029, which are valid inside JSON strings
4. Pass --no-approve or --approve in scripts to make the project trust decision explicit
5. Set PI_TELEMETRY=0 and PI_SKIP_VERSION_CHECK=1, or PI_OFFLINE=1, to stop the default requests to pi.dev