# goose vs Prime Agent

> goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Prime Agent's 60.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harness. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-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
- Updated: 2026-10-08

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Prime Agent's 60.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harness.

- goose: grade BB, 73.9/100, rank #72 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/goose.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/goose.json
- Prime Agent: grade C, 60.5/100, rank #399 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json

## 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 65
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 42
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 73
- Security & auth, 77 against 50
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 79

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

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

### Prime Agent (C)

Good for: Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.

Watch for: No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | goose | Prime Agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 65 | goose +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 42 | goose +39 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 73 | goose +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 50 | goose +27 |
| 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) | 86 | 79 | goose +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 64 | Prime Agent +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **73.9 · BB** | **60.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | goose | Prime Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agentic AI Foundation (originally Block) | Prime Intellect |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 55k stars | 22k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

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

**Prime Agent.** Budgets for turns, tokens and time bound an autonomous run, and sessions survive a closed terminal through a supervising daemon. Model-written Python and shell commands run with the user's rights, with no approval step and no sandbox, and the Rust build on the main branch ships only as nightly betas.

## Before you call either

### goose

1. Set `GOOSE_MODE=smart_approve` or `approve` before a run. The default approves everything
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

### Prime Agent

1. Run it in a disposable clone, container or VM. It executes model-written Python and shell commands with the user's rights and asks nothing first
2. Set `PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine
3. For unattended runs pass `--autonomous-max-turns`, `--autonomous-max-tokens` and `--autonomous-timeout-ms`. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded
4. Headless use is `-p` with `--mode json` per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because `/login` is interactive
5. The `-t/--tools`, `-nt/--no-tools` and `-nbt/--no-builtin-tools` flags were removed and now fail as unknown options

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, goose or Prime Agent?

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Prime Agent's 60.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Are goose and Prime Agent open source?

Yes. goose is open source (Apache-2.0). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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