# Harness vs Paseo

> Paseo scores 62.1 (B) to Harness's 60.9 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paseo
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paseo.md (~5,450 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- Harness: grade C, 60.9/100, rank #632 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json
- Paseo: grade B, 62.1/100, rank #577 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/paseo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paseo.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 1500 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Harness (C)

Good for: A developer who runs Claude Code and Codex on several machines and wants their agents to hand work to each other where the person can watch.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 70

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser

### Paseo (B)

Good for: Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 50 against 40
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: Pre-1.0, at 0.15.3


## Why the edge

### Schema & documentation: Harness +20

- Harness (85): Read as an MCP server and CLI. Eleven tools in source at v0.5.33, each with a typed JSON Schema input built by one helper, required fields marked, plus `--json` on every command. No OpenAPI, which a stdio server does not need (23). llms.txt and a Markdown-like agents page written for agents, per the 17 October check, not re-read on 4 November, since Autonomous's terms forbid access to its sites by automated means, including scripts or web crawlers, and its hosts are paused pending the founder (10). The tool descriptions and server instructions say when to call whoami first, to prefer a new project over an existing folder, to read before telling a harness more, and that turning a setting on is the person's yes to give (20). An enum on `agent` and on the setting `name`, `minItems` on wait names, minimum and maximum on `timeout_seconds`, a minimum on `chars` and `limit`. `machine`, `folder`, `project` and `model` are free strings (12). Worked examples, the exit code table and the `Next:` line per the 17 October reading of the agents page and llms.txt, with exit codes still in the source (13). Per-component semver tags, but the only CHANGELOG.md covers the provider protocol (0.3.0, 6 August 2026), and GitHub's release pages could not be read (7). 23 + 10 + 20 + 12 + 13 + 7 = 85.
- Paseo (65): Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).

### Payments & pricing: Paseo +20

- Harness (40): No payment protocol (0). Read with the self-hosted rule. The software is free and the optional hardware prices are public, per the 17 October check, not re-read on 4 November, since Autonomous's terms forbid access to its sites by automated means, including scripts or web crawlers, and its hosts are paused pending the founder (20). Free with no card (20). An agent cannot start harnesses until the person signs in with Google or Apple in a browser; the agent can now turn the experimental setting on with the person's yes, but the browser sign-in still needs the person, so 0 for autonomous onboarding, as the other harnesses that need an account were read (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.
- Paseo (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.

### Reliability: Paseo +10

- Harness (40): Read as local software, since the agents run on the owner's machines. A one-line installer from Autonomous's CDN, DMG and AppImage builds, and App Store and Google Play apps, with macOS and Linux stated as supported and Node managed by the installer, per the 17 October check, not re-read on 4 November, since Autonomous's terms forbid access to its sites by automated means, including scripts or web crawlers, and its hosts are paused pending the founder. Not on a package registry we could read (20). A public CI workflow plans a run per changed component, with Linux unit tests, the desktop suite in four shards, repository tooling tests, typechecks and a bundle test, and a separate CLI end-to-end workflow. We could not read run results, so 15, the value this run gives public CI that runs the tests with an unreadable result (10 on 17 October, corrected). Open issues could not be read, because github.com answers our proxy with 403. Unchecked, so scored absent (0). Tags follow semver per component, but there is no changelog for the app or CLI and breaking changes are not marked in the repository (5). The CLI went from 0.4.x to 0.5.x on 29 October (v0.5.1_cli); a 0.x minor is exempt from the breaking-change term under this run's provisional reading. The CLI agents call is 0.5.33 (3 November 2026), the npm MCP package is 0.2.0, and Agents can start other agents is still an experiment, so the agent surface is pre-1.0 (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 0 = 40. Accounts and the relay are hosted by Autonomous with no status page found on 17 October.
- Paseo (50): Local software. Desktop builds, an Android APK, a Docker image and a Nix package (20). ci.yml on the repository; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). CHANGELOG.md (15). Version 0.15.3 (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 50.

### Agent ergonomics: Harness +7

- Harness (77): Eleven tools at v0.5.33 (seven on 17 October). Added since then are harness_search, harness_machines, harness_tell and harness_settings; harness_send and harness_tell are listed only inside a harness, so an agent outside one sees nine. Descriptions total about 4,000 characters. Judgement call. By the total, 11 tools fall in the 11 to 30 band (15), with 5 back for listing two tools only inside a harness (20). Counting only the nine an outside agent sees gives 25. We took the stricter reading, as the 17 October check counted the total (20). `chars` sizes a read (4,000 characters by default), `limit` sizes a search (10 by default), `all` widens the list, and `any` returns on the first finished harness. No pagination (14). Exit codes, refusals returned as answers rather than errors so a model does not retry them, and a timed-out wait reported as still working, in the source (19). readOnlyHint on whoami, list, search, machines, wait and read, destructiveHint false on start, tell and send, idempotentHint on close, and no hint on settings so an engine that asks before an unmarked tool asks the person (16). Two required fields on start, defaults of Claude Code and a 45-second wait. No SDK, but a CLI, an MCP server and a plugin with a skill (8). 20 + 14 + 19 + 16 + 8 = 77.
- Paseo (70): Harness reading. A self-hosted daemon that agents can use to create worktrees, launch other agents and talk to them, scriptable from the CLI (70).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Harness | Paseo | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 50 | Paseo +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 65 | Harness +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 70 | Harness +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 58 | Paseo +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Paseo +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 75 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 68 | Paseo +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.9 · C** | **62.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness | Paseo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Autonomous, Inc. | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | stdio |  |
| Auth | OAuth | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 11 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `ai.autonomous.harness/harness` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-07 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Popularity | 1.3k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Harness

- +0.9 on 4 November 2026: product, correction
- -0.3 on 30 October 2026: checklist

### Paseo

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Harness.** An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on any of their machines, through documented CLI commands and 11 MCP tools. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental setting an agent can now switch on by stating the person agreed, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by default.

**Paseo.** A self-hosted, open-source workspace for running many coding agents on your own machines, scriptable from the CLI and reachable from phone, web or desktop, with no telemetry or forced log-in. It's pre-1.0 and run largely by one maintainer.

## Before you call either

### Harness

1. Run `harness whoami` first. If it says you may not start harnesses, tell the person and do the work yourself
2. Ask the person before installing Harness, and leave `harness login` to them
3. Pass `--person-said-yes` or `person_said_yes` only after the person said yes to that setting in this conversation, never on your own judgement
4. Treat exit 5 as final and do not retry. Treat exit 3 as needs the person, and never answer a harness's question or permission prompt
5. Name every harness, put the whole task in `harness new`, then wait, read with `harness show` and close only the ones you started

### Paseo

1. Run the daemon on the machine that has your tools and credentials, and connect from the clients
2. Script runs from the CLI for repeatable agent jobs

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Harness or Paseo?

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.

### Are Harness and Paseo open source?

Yes. Harness is open source (MIT). Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

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---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp