# DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs mini-swe-agent

> mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) to DeepSeek Harness's 49.2 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-mini-swe-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-mini-swe-agent.md (~3,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-mini-swe-agent.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-mini-swe-agent.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-18

mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. 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
- mini-swe-agent: grade C, 56.7/100, rank #698 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.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:
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 49

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

### mini-swe-agent (C)

Good for: Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 33
- Security & auth, 56 against 40

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: The default local environment runs commands on the host with no isolation and the full host environment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | mini-swe-agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 70 | mini-swe-agent +37 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 58 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 69 | mini-swe-agent +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 56 | mini-swe-agent +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 49 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 51 | mini-swe-agent +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **49.2 · D** | **56.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | DeepSeek | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-07-23 |
| 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 | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk |
| 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.

**mini-swe-agent.** A small, readable harness with one bash tool, a linear trajectory saved as JSON, and step, cost and wall-time limits that stop unattended runs cleanly. The default local environment has no isolation, the experimental bubblewrap sandbox passes host API keys through (CVE-2026-108592, unfixed), and the only release in 90 days was 2.4.6 on 23 July 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

### mini-swe-agent

1. Run with `-y --exit-immediately` for unattended use. Without `--exit-immediately` it waits for input when the agent finishes
2. Set `MSWEA_CONFIGURED=true` and `MSWEA_MODEL_NAME` first, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt
3. Read `info.exit_status` in the `-o` trajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally
4. For untrusted repositories use `-c mini.yaml -c environment.environment_class=docker -c environment.image=<image>`. The local and bubblewrap environments both expose host variables
5. Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or mini-swe-agent?

mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 49.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

### Are DeepSeek Harness (dsh) and mini-swe-agent open source?

Yes. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT). mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or mini-swe-agent

- [Agent Zero vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Agent Zero vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Aider vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Aider vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Amp vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Amp vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Claude Code vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Claude Code vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Cline vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Cline vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Crush vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Crush vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-devin.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-goose.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harness2.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Jules](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-jules.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-junie.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Kimi Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-kimi-code-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Mistral Vibe CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-mistral-vibe-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-muse-code.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-opencode.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-openhands.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-warp.md)
- [Devin vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Droid CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Pi vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [goose vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Harness² vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Jules vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jules-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Junie CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Kilo Code CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kilo-code-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Kimi Code CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kimi-code-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Kiro CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Mistral Vibe CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-mistral-vibe-cli.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-muse-code.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-opencode.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-openhands.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-warp.md)
- [CLI Manager vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-paperclip.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-parallax-agents.md)

---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp