Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Emdash vs Rovo Dev CLI

Emdash scores 53.9 (D) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 44.1 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Emdash D

Best for Developers who want parallel agents in worktrees, fed from their issue tracker, locally or over SSH.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 55 against 35
  • Schema & documentation, 55 against 45
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 15
  • Maintenance & community, 70 against 61

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

Telemetry on unless turned off in Settings or with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false

Rovo Dev CLI E

Best 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 38
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 54

Watch for

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

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing Emdash +45

Emdash 60

Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy, so 0 for a protocol and 20 each for public pricing, a free tier and onboarding with no sign-up, 60.

Rovo Dev CLI 15

Harness reading of the published rubric, scored on the Rovo Dev subscription the CLI needs. No payment protocol (0). Rovo Dev Standard is $20 a developer a month with 2,000 credits and extra credits are $0.01, both public. The credit multiplier for each model is shown only inside the CLI, and a task is given only as a range (5 to 50 tasks per 2,000 credits), so a run's cost can't be worked out before signing up. Judgement call between the 10 for plan-only pricing and the full 20 (15). Rovo Dev Free gives 350 credits a month, but only on Jira Standard or Premium sites, which are paid plans, and the 30-day Standard trial excludes the CLI (0). An organisation admin activates Rovo Dev and the user creates an API token in a browser (0). 0+15+0+0 = 15.

Reliability Emdash +20

Emdash 55

Local software. Homebrew cask and installers for macOS, Windows and Linux (20). A code-consistency check and release workflows; no test workflow found (10). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Stable tags to v1.2.11, release notes on GitHub (10). Version 1.2.11 (15). 20 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 15 = 55.

Rovo Dev CLI 35

Local-package reading, the same as the other closed-source harnesses. Rovo Dev ships inside the Atlassian CLI, which installs from a Homebrew tap with SHA-256 checksums, signed apt and yum repositories and curl downloads for macOS, Linux and Windows on amd64 and arm64, and Rovo Dev downloads itself on first use (20). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). No public issue tracker. The Rovo Dev community board was last active on 16 January 2026, and bugs otherwise go to /feedback and Atlassian Support, so open crash reports can't be counted (8). Rovo Dev builds moved from 0.13.x to date-based versions such as 202604.30.2 and 202610.16.1b1, per AtlasCode's changelog and manifest, and have no public changelog, and the Atlassian CLI changelog stops at v1.3.15 while its repository serves 1.3.39 (2). Rovo Dev has been rolling out as a product since October 2025, but the version number carries no stability signal and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life. Judgement call (5). The CLI runs against Atlassian's hosted service, and the Rovo status page has no Rovo Dev component. 20+0+8+2+5 = 35.

Schema & documentation Emdash +10

Emdash 55

Harness reading. Docs site and a workspace server package (55).

Rovo Dev CLI 45

Framework reading. Server mode lists its /v3 endpoints with request bodies, and an Atlassian engineering post of 27 October 2025 says Swagger docs are served at localhost:<port>/docs. That contract is only visible on a running server, and no schema for the SSE events or the config file was published (12). No llms.txt on support.atlassian.com or developer.atlassian.com, and no Markdown twins found (0). The tools page says what allow, ask and deny do, what YOLO mode skips and that MCP tools keep their permissions, and the settings page gives each default. Little says when not to use a mode (12). Permission levels, console output formats and tool names are enumerated in the settings reference with defaults (10). Server mode has curl, Python and JavaScript examples. No exit codes or error responses are documented beyond the post's note that a failed entitlement check disables every endpoint except healthcheck and shutdown (7). The API path is versioned (/v3), but there is no public changelog for Rovo Dev builds (4). 12+0+12+10+7+4 = 45.

Security & auth Rovo Dev CLI +10

Emdash 38

Harness reading. Telemetry is described as optional and disabled in Settings or with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false, which reads as on by default (15 of 30). Worktree per task and remote machines over SSH (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). No security policy file found (3). 15 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 3 = 38.

Rovo Dev CLI 48

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for credentials and what leaves the machine, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. The CLI processes data on the device and sends prompts to Atlassian's models, whose providers don't retain or train on them, per the Rovo privacy page and the AI Terms. The scoped token the docs create carries about 50 scopes including write, delete and admin:repository:bitbucket, the pipelines guide asks for an unscoped token, and no telemetry description for the CLI was found (12). Writes and shell commands ask by default, reads are allowed, bash rules are regex, compound commands are split and file access stays in the workspace. There is no sandbox for customers (runInSandbox is macOS only and for internal users), --yolo skips file and shell prompts, and project-level skills in a cloned repository can list pre-approved tools. We found no workspace trust step (10). MCP server instructions go into the system prompt by default, with a per-server enable_instructions switch, and the MCP page says data isn't sent to third-party tools without the user's approval (7). Administrators can turn Rovo Dev on and off per organisation and site and see credit use. Logs stay local in ~/.rovodev/logs, and no audit log of CLI actions was found (5). security.txt is valid (Expires 2027-02-04), Atlassian runs a public Bugcrowd bug bounty and publishes its fix objectives. The rollout page says Rovo Dev hasn't been externally audited for ISO 27001 or SOC 2, and we didn't check whether the bounty scope names Rovo Dev (14). 12+10+7+5+14 = 48.

Maintenance & community Emdash +9

Emdash 70

v1.2.11 on 6 November 2026 (30). v1.2.9, v1.2.10 and v1.2.11 within two weeks (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current installers and Homebrew cask (15). Release workflows, no test CI (5). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 70.

Rovo Dev CLI 61

Atlassian's AtlasCode extension, which downloads the same Rovo Dev binary for the IDE, pinned build 202610.16.1b1 in its pre-release of 16 October 2026, and the Atlassian CLI repository served 1.3.39-stable on 23 September 2026. We didn't run the CLI to read the version it installs. Judgement call (30). AtlasCode pinned eight Rovo Dev builds between 23 July and 16 October 2026 (20). No public changelog for the builds. Support is through Atlassian Support and the community, where the Rovo Dev board was last active on 16 January 2026 (5). No SDK and no registry entry. The server-mode API is kept current for the IDE extension (3). The Homebrew formula carries checksums and the Linux repositories are signed. There's no public CI (3). 30+20+5+3+3 = 61.

Transparency & trust Rovo Dev CLI +9

Emdash 54

Apache 2.0 (30). A telemetry page on the docs site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.

Rovo Dev CLI 63

Proprietary, with clear terms. The Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026), which say Input and Output are Customer Data and that subcontractors may not train on them (15). The Rovo privacy page keeps Chat and agent inputs and outputs for 30 days and says Rovo has SOC 2, ISO 27001 and data residency, while the Rovo Dev rollout page (modified 27 August 2026) says Rovo Dev has none of the three. We found no retention period for Rovo Dev sessions sent to Atlassian (12). The licensing FAQ promises at least 60 days' notice before Rovo Dev's end of life and dates the Code Reviewer move to 3 December 2026, but gives no date for the CLI's move to the Rovo CLI. Each Atlassian CLI version is supported for six months (14). No telemetry description or opt-out for the CLI was found. AtlasCode's changelog documents Rovo Dev telemetry events in the IDE, which this listing doesn't cover (0). 15+12+14+0 = 41.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runEmdashRovo Dev CLIEdge
Reliability16%205535Emdash +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25545Emdash +10
Agent ergonomics13%16.25553Emdash +2
Security & auth14%17.53848Rovo Dev CLI +10
Payments & pricing10%12.56015Emdash +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87061Emdash +9
Transparency & trust7%8.85463Rovo Dev CLI +9
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 53.9/100E 44.1/100

Facts side by side

FactEmdashRovo Dev CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorGeneral Action, Inc.Atlassian
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Proprietary, 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 documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-062026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedcouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetnot found in the text
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Emdash

No score change since it was listed.

Rovo Dev CLI

Verdicts

Emdash

A mature open-source app for parallel coding agents in Git worktrees, with issue intake from a dozen trackers and remote machines over SSH. Telemetry is on unless you turn it off, and no test workflow was found in the repository.

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

Emdash

  1. Launch with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false if you don't want telemetry
  2. Use the SSH mode to keep agents on a remote machine

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, Emdash or Rovo Dev CLI?

Emdash scores 53.9 (D) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 44.1 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

Are Emdash and Rovo Dev CLI open source?

Emdash is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Rovo Dev CLI.

Other comparisons with Emdash or Rovo Dev CLI

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