# DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Rovo Dev CLI

> DeepSeek Harness scores 49.2 (D) to Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

DeepSeek Harness (dsh) scores 49.2 (D) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. 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
- Rovo Dev CLI: grade E, 43.9/100, rank #1010 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rovo-dev-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/rovo-dev-cli.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 45
- Agent ergonomics, 68 against 53
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 15
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.0 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

### Rovo Dev CLI (E)

Good for: Teams already on Jira, Confluence and Bitbucket who want the agent to read and update work items and pages from the terminal or a pipeline.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 48 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 50

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

Watch for: Atlassian has announced end of life for standalone Rovo Dev, with the CLI moving to the Rovo CLI and no dates set


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Rovo Dev CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 35 | Rovo Dev CLI +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 45 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +32 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 53 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 48 | Rovo Dev CLI +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 15 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +45 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 61 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 61 | Rovo Dev CLI +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.2 · D** | **43.9 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Rovo Dev CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | DeepSeek | Atlassian |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under the Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the Atlassian AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026). No source is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 245k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2/5 (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.

**Rovo Dev CLI.** Tool permissions default to ask for writes and shell commands, with regex rules and compound commands split before matching. It needs a paid Atlassian plan with Rovo Dev, has no customer sandbox or public changelog, and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life as the CLI moves to the Rovo CLI.

## 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

### Rovo Dev CLI

1. Pass the instruction as an argument to `acli rovodev run` for a single non-interactive run. No JSON output flag or exit codes are documented
2. Use `acli rovodev serve <port>` and stream `/v3/stream_chat?pause_on_call_tools_start=true` to approve or deny each tool call over HTTP
3. Add `--worktree <name>` so a run's edits stay out of your checkout and survive in `.rovodev/worktrees/<name>`
4. Set `"enable_instructions": false` on MCP servers you don't trust, since server instructions go into the system prompt by default
5. Check `/usage` before long runs. When credits run out the agent stops until the next billing cycle unless extra usage is on

## Questions

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

DeepSeek Harness (dsh) scores 49.2 (D) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Are DeepSeek Harness (dsh) and Rovo Dev CLI open source?

DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Rovo Dev CLI.


## For agents

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

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