Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Harness²
DeepSeek Harness (dsh) scores 49.2 (D) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Developers who use DeepSeek models and want a scriptable harness with ACP, a JSON event stream and a Python SDK.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 33 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 51
- Agent ergonomics, 68 against 59
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 50 against 44
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5
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
Harness² E
Best 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.
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- No incidents deducted, where DeepSeek Harness (dsh) loses 6 points for them
Watch for
No hosted API, MCP server or tagged release. It installs from a source checkout only, and harness2 isn't on PyPI
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Harness² | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 33 | 20 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +13 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 77 | 51 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 68 | 59 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +9 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 40 | 44 | Harness² +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 40 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 71 | 36 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 50 | 44 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| Total | D 49.2/100 | E 41.6/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Harness² |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | DeepSeek | Google (Google Research) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | 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 | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 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 | 4.2k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2.5/5 (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.
Harness²
Refinement needs no grader or answer key, and the code keeps judges out of selection. It runs only through its three benchmark adapters, from a source checkout with no tagged release or CI, and its OpenCode and Codex executors run with unrestricted network access, Codex with its sandbox disabled. The benchmark gains are the authors' claims.
Before you call either
DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Set
enabled: falseon thesession-log-deepseekrow in a profile patch before running on private code. Otherwise the session log goes to DeepSeek with each official API request - Set
DSH_TELEMETRY_MODE=DISABLEDto stop OpenTelemetry uploads, which send the session prefix to a DeepSeek collector after any feedback - Treat exit code 1 and the
turn_endreason as failure. A--jsonstream can end with afinalevent for a failed run - 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
- Pin the version. npm
latest(0.2.0-rc.2) andnext(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
Harness²
- Don't plan to call Harness² as a service. It's a research CLI run from a clone, on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench only
- Ask the person for a Vertex AI project, model IDs and
gcloud auth application-default loginbefore any model-backed run, and start with--max-tasks 1 - Run executors behind an egress firewall and block huggingface.co and github.com after setup, as the docs advise, so rubrics can't be fetched
- Write .env yourself with GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT, HARNESS2_SOLVER_MODEL and HARNESS2_JUDGE_MODEL, since .env.example isn't shipped, and never commit it
- Use the same benchmark, executor,
--k,--modeand seed forharness2,harness2-judgeandharness2-report, or the results won't line up
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or Harness²?
DeepSeek Harness (dsh) scores 49.2 (D) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Are DeepSeek Harness (dsh) and Harness² open source?
Yes. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT). Harness² is open source (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).).
Other comparisons with DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or Harness²
- Agent Zero vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Agent Zero vs Harness²
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- Aider vs Harness²
- Amp vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Amp vs Harness²
- Antigravity CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Antigravity CLI vs Harness²
- Auggie CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Auggie CLI vs Harness²
- Claude Code vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Claude Code vs Harness²
- Cline vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Cline vs Harness²
- Crush vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Crush vs Harness²
- Cursor CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Cursor CLI vs Harness²
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Devin
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Droid CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Pi
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Gemini CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs GitHub Copilot CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs goose
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs HarnessRouter
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Jules
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Junie CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Kilo Code CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Kimi Code CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Kiro CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs mini-swe-agent
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Muse Code
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenAI Codex
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenCode
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenHands
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Prime Agent
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Qoder CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Qwen Code
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Mirror CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Rovo Dev CLI
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- Devin vs Harness²
- Droid CLI vs Harness²
- Pi vs Harness²
- Gemini CLI vs Harness²
- GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness²
- goose vs Harness²
- Harness² vs HarnessRouter
- Harness² vs Jules
- Harness² vs Junie CLI
- Harness² vs Kilo Code CLI
- Harness² vs Kimi Code CLI
- Harness² vs Kiro CLI
- Harness² vs mini-swe-agent
- Harness² vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- Harness² vs Muse Code
- Harness² vs OpenAI Codex
- Harness² vs OpenCode
- Harness² vs OpenHands
- Harness² vs Prime Agent
- Harness² vs Qoder CLI
- Harness² vs Qwen Code
- Harness² vs Mirror CLI
- Harness² vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Harness² vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- CLI Manager vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Harness
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Paperclip
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Parallax
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harness2.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/deepseek-harness.json·/api/v1/tools/harness2.json - From a terminal
anchor compare deepseek-harness harness2(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "deepseek-harness", "b": "harness2"}at/mcp, no key