# DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Harness

> Harness scores 60.3 (C) to DeepSeek Harness's 49.2 (D) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

Harness scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- DeepSeek Harness (dsh): grade D, 49.2/100, rank #909 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepseek-harness.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepseek-harness.json
- Harness: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #573 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### DeepSeek Harness (dsh) (D)

Good for: Developers who use DeepSeek models and want a scriptable harness with ACP, a JSON event stream and a Python SDK.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 60

Watch for: By default each request to DeepSeek's official API carries the session log, including message text, tool arguments and results, up to 8 MiB a request

### Harness (C)

Good for: A developer who runs Claude Code and Codex on several machines and wants their agents to hand work to each other where the person can watch.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 77
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 68
- Security & auth, 57 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 50

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where DeepSeek Harness (dsh) loses 6 points for them

Watch for: Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser and an experimental account switch, off by default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Harness | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 35 | Harness +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 85 | Harness +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 82 | Harness +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 57 | Harness +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 60 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 68 | Harness +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.2 · D** | **60.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Harness |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | DeepSeek | Autonomous, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no 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 |  |  |
| Popularity | 245k npm/wk | 1.3k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Harness.** An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on this or another of their machines, through documented CLI commands and seven annotated MCP tools with exit codes. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental switch that is off by default, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by default.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Harness

1. Run `harness whoami` first. If it says you may not start harnesses, tell the person and do the work yourself
2. Ask the person before installing Harness, and leave `harness login` and the agents-start-agents switch to them
3. Treat exit 5 as final and do not retry. Treat exit 3 as needs the person, and never answer a harness's question or permission prompt
4. Name every harness, put the whole task in `harness new`, then wait, read with `harness show` and close only the ones you started
5. Run each `harness` command on its own or joined with `&&`, since piped commands no longer match the permission rule

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or Harness?

Harness scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Are DeepSeek Harness (dsh) and Harness open source?

Yes. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT). Harness is open source (MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harness-autonomous.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harness-autonomous.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "deepseek-harness", "b": "harness-autonomous"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare deepseek-harness harness-autonomous`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepseek-harness.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json

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