# DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs HarnessRouter

> HarnessRouter scores 53.2 (D) to DeepSeek Harness's 49.2 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

HarnessRouter scores 53.2 (D) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- 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
- HarnessRouter: grade D, 53.2/100, rank #803 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harnessrouter.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harnessrouter.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 25

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

### HarnessRouter (D)

Good for: A product team that wants to run Codex, Claude Code, Hermes or 23 other harnesses server-side behind one task, session and file contract, and switch between them by changing an ID.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 77
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 68
- Security & auth, 58 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 50

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: No status page found (status.harnessrouter.ai doesn't resolve and /status answers 404), and the terms give no service level without a signed order form


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | HarnessRouter | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 35 | HarnessRouter +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 83 | HarnessRouter +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 73 | HarnessRouter +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 58 | HarnessRouter +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 25 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 72 | HarnessRouter +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 72 | HarnessRouter +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **49.2 · D** | **53.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | HarnessRouter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | DeepSeek | HarnessRouter (Lumentree Corporation) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.harnessrouter.ai` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 for the Community Edition server and the UHP specification, schema and conformance suite. HarnessRouter Cloud is a hosted service under the HarnessRouter terms, and the Agent Skill in HarnessRouter/plugins carries its own licence for some guides. |
| Tools exposed | none | 0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-16 |
| 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 | 3.1k 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.

**HarnessRouter.** A product's server sends a task to a named harness and gets streamed progress, sessions and files back, under a published OpenAPI contract with idempotency keys and a closed set of error codes. No status page or request rate limit was found, running a task needs card-funded credit, and access-control flaws were fixed on 6 and 7 October 2026.

## 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

### HarnessRouter

1. Name the harness yourself. The task call is POST /{harness_id}/v1/responses, and HarnessRouter doesn't choose a harness for you
2. Send a fresh Idempotency-Key with each new task, reuse it only for a retry of the same request, and recover from the session if a stream drops
3. Call cancel to stop work. Closing the SSE connection leaves the agent running and billing
4. Keep the Workspace API key on the server. The docs forbid calling the API from a browser with it
5. Check each tool's enforcement in GET /v1/bases. On bases marked instruction, disabled_tools is a request to the model, not a block

## Questions

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

HarnessRouter scores 53.2 (D) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on payments & pricing.

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

Yes. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT). HarnessRouter is open source (Apache-2.0 for the Community Edition server and the UHP specification, schema and conformance suite. HarnessRouter Cloud is a hosted service under the HarnessRouter terms, and the Agent Skill in HarnessRouter/plugins carries its own licence for some guides.).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or HarnessRouter

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- [Agent Zero vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harnessrouter.md)
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