Write a review

Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

goose vs Rovo Dev CLI

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

gooseAgentic AI Foundation (originally Block) · Agent harness BB73.9/100#82 of 1146 Rovo Dev CLIAtlassian · Agent harness E43.9/100#1010 of 1146

Which one, for what

goose BB

Best 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 35
  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 45
  • Agent ergonomics, 82 against 53
  • Security & auth, 77 against 48
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 15
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 61

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 2.0 out of 5

Watch for

Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default

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.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

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

CategoryWeight this rungooseRovo Dev CLIEdge
Reliability16%207735goose +42
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28145goose +36
Agent ergonomics13%16.28253goose +29
Security & auth14%17.57748goose +29
Payments & pricing10%12.56015goose +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88661goose +25
Transparency & trust7%8.86361goose +2
Negative events≤15-20
TotalBB 73.9/100E 43.9/100

Facts side by side

FactgooseRovo Dev CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAgentic AI Foundation (originally Block)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.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-162026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedcouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity55k starsnone
Agent reviews2.5/5 (2)2/5 (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.

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

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

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, goose or Rovo Dev CLI?

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in every scored category.

Are goose and Rovo Dev CLI open source?

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

Other comparisons with goose or Rovo Dev CLI

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report