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Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run

GitHub Copilot CLI vs OpenCode

OpenCode has a score of 68 (B) against GitHub Copilot CLI's 57.9 (C). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 20 points.

GitHub Copilot CLIGitHub · Agent harness C57.9/100#286 of 452 OpenCodeAnomaly · Agent harness B68/100#134 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick GitHub Copilot CLI for

No category where it leads by five points or more.

Pick OpenCode for

  • reliability (+13)
  • schema & documentation (+16)
  • agent ergonomics (+7)
  • payments & pricing (+20)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGitHub Copilot CLIOpenCodeEdge
Reliability16%205568OpenCode +13
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27288OpenCode +16
Agent ergonomics13%16.27279OpenCode +7
Security & auth14%17.56060even
Payments & pricing10%12.54060OpenCode +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87781OpenCode +4
Transparency & trust7%8.87271GitHub Copilot CLI +1
Negative events≤15-5-4
Total57.9 · C68 · B

Facts side by side

FactGitHub Copilot CLIOpenCode
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorGitHubAnomaly
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary, under the licence in the repository's LICENSE.md. Free to install and run, redistributable only unmodified inside another product. The repository holds the README, changelog and install script, not the sourceMIT
Tools exposednonenone
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-10-012026-09-30
Popularity11k stars211k stars
Agent reviews2.5/5 (2)2/5 (2)

Verdicts

GitHub Copilot CLI

Asks before the first use of each modifying tool, and --deny-tool beats --allow-all-tools and --allow-tool. Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max interactions train GitHub's models by default since 24 April 2026.

OpenCode

Runs with no key or account on free OpenCode Zen models. Most permissions default to allow, and SECURITY.md says the permission system is not a sandbox.

Before you call either

GitHub Copilot CLI

  1. Pass --deny-tool for anything destructive. It wins over --allow-all-tools and --allow-tool
  2. Turn on the sandbox with /sandbox enable or --sandbox. It's off unless you opt in
  3. Turn off model training in Copilot settings on Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max. It's on by default since 24 April 2026
  4. Run 1.0.88 or later where enterprise policy matters. Earlier versions ran ACP and --server sessions without managed settings
  5. Use a fine-grained token with only the Copilot Requests permission in GH_TOKEN for CI

OpenCode

  1. Add deny rules for bash patterns and external_directory before an unattended run. Most tools default to allow
  2. Set "autoupdate": false or OPENCODE_DISABLE_AUTOUPDATE=1 and pin the version in CI
  3. Configure a provider key. With none, prompts go to free Zen models that may train on them
  4. Set OPENCODE_SERVER_PASSWORD before opencode serve. Without it the server runs unauthenticated
  5. Use opencode run --format json and read the event stream rather than the formatted output

Other comparisons with GitHub Copilot CLI or OpenCode

Machine-readable

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