# goose vs Harness²

> goose scores 73.9 (BB) to Harness²'s 41.6 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- goose: grade BB, 73.9/100, rank #82 of 1135. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/goose.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/goose.json
- Harness²: grade E, 41.6/100, rank #1029 of 1135. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 354 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### goose (BB)

Good for: People and pipelines that want one agent across many model providers or local models, with recipes for repeatable jobs and a desktop app for non-engineers.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 77 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 51
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 59
- Security & auth, 77 against 44
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 44

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default

### Harness² (E)

Good for: Researchers who want to reproduce or extend the paper's per-task harness refinement on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench with OpenCode or Codex on Vertex AI.

Watch for: No hosted API, MCP server or tagged release. It installs from a source checkout only, and harness2 isn't on PyPI


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | goose | Harness² | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 20 | goose +57 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 51 | goose +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 59 | goose +23 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 44 | goose +33 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | goose +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 36 | goose +50 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 44 | goose +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **73.9 · BB** | **41.6 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | goose | Harness² |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agentic AI Foundation (originally Block) | Google (Google Research) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation). |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-10-08 |
| 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 | 55k stars | 4.2k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**goose.** Telemetry off until the user opts in, with the collected fields listed. Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default.

**Harness².** Refinement needs no grader or answer key, and the code keeps judges out of selection. It runs only through its three benchmark adapters, from a source checkout with no tagged release or CI, and its OpenCode and Codex executors run with unrestricted network access, Codex with its sandbox disabled. The benchmark gains are the authors' claims.

## Before you call either

### goose

1. Set `GOOSE_MODE=smart_approve` or `approve` before a run. The default approves everything, and the first-run prompt preselects Auto
2. Pass `--max-turns` with a real limit. The default is 1000
3. Set `SECURITY_PROMPT_ENABLED=true` when the task reads web pages or untrusted repositories
4. Use `--output-format json` and `--no-session` in CI, and check the exit code
5. Point remotes and links at aaif-goose/goose and goose-docs.ai. The block/goose paths redirect

### Harness²

1. Don't plan to call Harness² as a service. It's a research CLI run from a clone, on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench only
2. Ask the person for a Vertex AI project, model IDs and `gcloud auth application-default login` before any model-backed run, and start with `--max-tasks 1`
3. Run executors behind an egress firewall and block huggingface.co and github.com after setup, as the docs advise, so rubrics can't be fetched
4. Write .env yourself with GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT, HARNESS2_SOLVER_MODEL and HARNESS2_JUDGE_MODEL, since .env.example isn't shipped, and never commit it
5. Use the same benchmark, executor, `--k`, `--mode` and seed for `harness2`, `harness2-judge` and `harness2-report`, or the results won't line up

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, goose or Harness²?

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Are goose and Harness² open source?

Yes. goose is open source (Apache-2.0). Harness² is open source (Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation).).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness2.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness2.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "goose", "b": "harness2"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare goose harness2`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/goose.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json

## Other comparisons with goose or Harness²

- [Agent Zero vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-goose.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harness2.md)
- [Aider vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-goose.md)
- [Aider vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-harness2.md)
- [Amp vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-goose.md)
- [Amp vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness2.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Claude Code vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-goose.md)
- [Claude Code vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness2.md)
- [Cline vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-goose.md)
- [Cline vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness2.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Devin vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-goose.md)
- [Devin vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness2.md)
- [Droid CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [Droid CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Pi vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-goose.md)
- [Pi vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-harness2.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [goose vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [goose vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [goose vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [goose vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-muse-code.md)
- [goose vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [goose vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-opencode.md)
- [goose vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openhands.md)
- [goose vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [goose vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [goose vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Harness² vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Harness² vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Harness² vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Harness² vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Harness² vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Harness² vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-opencode.md)
- [Harness² vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openhands.md)
- [Harness² vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Harness² vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Harness² vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [CLI Manager vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-goose.md)
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- [goose vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-paperclip.md)
- [goose vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-parallax-agents.md)

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