{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "harness-autonomous", "name": "Harness", "vendor": "Autonomous, Inc.", "vendorUrl": "https://www.autonomous.ai/harness", "kind": "harness", "category": "agent-harnesses", "summary": "Harness, by Autonomous, is an open-source app that runs Claude Code, Codex and twelve other coding agents in tmux sessions across a person's computers. Agents can start, wait for and read other agents through its CLI or MCP tools.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json", "repo": "https://github.com/autonomous-ai/openharness", "license": "MIT", "transports": [ "stdio" ], "packages": [], "auth": "oauth", "authNotes": "No account for harnesses on one computer. Agents starting harnesses, remote machines and the phone need the person's Harness account, signed in with Google or Apple in a browser (PKCE) or by QR from the phone. Agents use the person's own Claude Code or Codex credentials.", "pricing": "free", "pricingNotes": "The desktop app, CLI and phone apps are free and MIT licensed. Agent subscriptions and model usage are the person's own. The Harness Device ($149) and Harness Pro ($299) are optional hardware.", "priceSummary": "Free · OSS", "where": "local", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the README, llms.txt, the agents page or the CLI source (checked 2026-10-17). The software has nothing to buy.", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": 7, "popularity": { "githubStars": 1284, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-17" }, "docsUrl": "https://harness.autonomous.ai/agents", "llmsTxt": "https://harness.autonomous.ai/llms.txt", "capabilities": [ "agent.multi-agent" ], "tags": [ "open-source", "mit", "local", "free", "no-card", "macos", "linux", "typescript", "mcp", "llms-txt", "desktop-app", "cli", "agent-skill" ], "lastRelease": "2026-10-17", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 60.3, "grade": "C", "agentReady": false, "rank": 570, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 1133, "categoryRank": 14, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 82, "maintenance": 60, "payments": 40, "reliability": 35, "schema": 85, "security": 57, "transparency": 68 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "low", "date": "2026-10-17" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on this or another of their machines, through documented CLI commands and seven annotated MCP tools with exit codes. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental switch that is off by default, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by default.", "bestFor": "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.", "strengths": [ "Seven MCP tools with typed JSON Schema inputs, `additionalProperties: false`, readOnlyHint on reads and server instructions on when not to start one", "llms.txt and an agents page list every command, the exit codes 0 to 5 and 124, and a `Next:` line after each answer", "Agents may start harnesses only after the person turns on an account switch an agent cannot flip, with at most four live harnesses each", "MIT licence for the app, CLI, daemon, relay and device firmware, with 548 tags between 9 September and 17 October 2026", "Remote terminal traffic is end-to-end encrypted, direct over WebRTC where the network allows, and relays forward ciphertext" ], "weaknesses": [ "Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser and an experimental account switch, off by default", "The CLI agents call is version 0.4.18 and the npm MCP package in the repository was never published", "Product usage counts are shared by default, with an opt-out in Settings or `harness privacy off`", "Installing Harness adds its commands to Claude Code's and Codex's permission rules, and Codex runs them outside its sandbox", "Autonomous's privacy policy and terms cover its stores and websites and do not mention Harness" ], "agentNotes": [ "Run `harness whoami` first. If it says you may not start harnesses, tell the person and do the work yourself", "Ask the person before installing Harness, and leave `harness login` and the agents-start-agents switch to them", "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", "Name every harness, put the whole task in `harness new`, then wait, read with `harness show` and close only the ones you started", "Run each `harness` command on its own or joined with `\u0026\u0026`, since piped commands no longer match the permission rule" ], "metrics": { "kind": "local", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 4, "avgRating": 3, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "low", "grade": "C", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 60.3 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 82, "maintenance": 60, "payments": 40, "reliability": 35, "schema": 85, "security": 57, "transparency": 64 }, "provenanceScore": 72 }, "connect": { "install": "curl -fsSL https://harness.autonomous.ai/cli/install.sh | bash \u0026\u0026 harness start", "claudeCode": "claude mcp add harness -- harness mcp", "config": { "mcpServers": { "harness": { "args": [ "mcp" ], "command": "harness" } } } }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/agent.multi-agent", "tool": "https://letme.dev/harness-autonomous" }, "area": "frameworks", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Autonomous, Inc.", "domain": "autonomous.ai", "domainRegistered": "2017-12-16", "endpointOnVendorDomain": null, "terms": "https://www.autonomous.ai/terms-of-use", "privacy": "https://www.autonomous.ai/privacy", "statusPage": "", "changelog": "https://github.com/autonomous-ai/openharness/releases", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-17", "notes": [ "The LICENSE file reads Copyright (c) 2026 Autonomous, Inc., and the privacy policy (last updated 7 July 2026) names Autonomous, Inc. The terms choose the law of California with binding arbitration.", "The privacy policy and terms cover Autonomous's websites, stores and apps in general. Neither names Harness or its product usage counts, which are described in the repository.", "RDAP at Identity Digital gives a registration date of 2017-12-16 for autonomous.ai.", "security.txt returned 404 on www.autonomous.ai and harness.autonomous.ai on 17 October 2026. The repository's SECURITY.md asks for reports to dee@autonomous.ai, with acknowledgement within three working days.", "CHANGELOG.md covers only the provider protocol (0.3.0, 6 August 2026). The CLI release workflow cuts a GitHub Release per tag, which we could not read because GitHub's web pages and API were not reachable from our network.", "The software runs on the owner's machines. Accounts, the relay and the backend are Autonomous's, and no status page was found." ], "score": 72 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.json", "live": { "slug": "harness-autonomous", "pages": [ { "url": "https://www.autonomous.ai/privacy", "kind": "privacy", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-17T23:13:27.381383505Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "caddd4dd6217" }, { "url": "https://www.autonomous.ai/terms-of-use", "kind": "terms", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-17T23:13:29.742966815Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "c30237c8a371" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-17T23:13:29.742966815Z" } }, "answer": "Prime Agent and Harness score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.3 (C). Harness leads on schema \u0026 documentation, agent ergonomics and security \u0026 auth.", "b": { "slug": "prime-agent", "name": "Prime Agent", "vendor": "Prime Intellect", "vendorUrl": "https://www.primeintellect.ai", "kind": "harness", "category": "agent-harnesses", "summary": "Prime Agent is an open-source coding and research agent from Prime Intellect, run from a terminal. The model works through a persistent Python REPL, spawns subagents as function calls and keeps sessions running in a background daemon.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json", "repo": "https://github.com/PrimeIntellect-ai/prime-agent", "license": "MIT", "transports": [], "packages": [], "auth": "none", "authNotes": "No account of its own is required. `/login` on first launch picks a subscription or an API-key provider, and provider keys can also come from environment variables such as `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`, `OPENAI_API_KEY`, `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` or `PRIME_API_KEY`.", "pricing": "free", "pricingNotes": "Free and MIT-licensed, with nothing to buy for the agent itself. The model provider is paid separately, and Prime Intellect's own inference service is one of the providers.", "priceSummary": "Free · OSS", "where": "local", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the README or the source (checked 2026-10-08).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": 21614, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-08" }, "docsUrl": "https://github.com/PrimeIntellect-ai/prime-agent#readme", "capabilities": [ "agent.harness", "agent.mcp-client", "agent.multi-agent" ], "tags": [ "open-source", "local", "free", "no-card", "rust", "mcp", "telemetry-default-on", "pre-1.0", "beta" ], "lastRelease": "2026-10-07", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 60.5, "grade": "C", "agentReady": false, "rank": 559, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 1133, "categoryRank": 12, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 73, "maintenance": 79, "payments": 60, "reliability": 65, "schema": 42, "security": 50, "transparency": 64 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-08" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "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.", "bestFor": "Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.", "strengths": [ "MIT licence, with CI on main passing on 8 October 2026 (fmt, clippy with warnings as errors, sharded tests, cargo-deny)", "Three model tools (bash, edit, ipython). MCP tools are found and called from Python, so their definitions stay out of the prompt", "Autonomous mode takes limits on turns, tokens, time and continuations, plus user-defined quality gates with retries", "A daemon supervises one worker per session, restarts it with backoff and restores from append-only JSONL session files", "Telemetry is disclosed on first run, carries primitive values only and has four documented ways to turn it off" ], "weaknesses": [ "No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox", "The stable channel (v0.9.8, 29 September 2026) is the TypeScript build. The Rust code on main ships only as nightly betas", "No documentation site for Prime Agent. Headless, JSON, RPC and ACP modes are described only in source and crate READMEs", "Usage telemetry is on by default, and the vendor privacy policy (updated 23 February 2024) does not describe it", "No SECURITY.md in the repository, and public issues and unsolicited pull requests are closed automatically" ], "agentNotes": [ "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", "Set `PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine", "For unattended runs pass `--autonomous-max-turns`, `--autonomous-max-tokens` and `--autonomous-timeout-ms`. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded", "Headless use is `-p` with `--mode json` per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because `/login` is interactive", "The `-t/--tools`, `-nt/--no-tools` and `-nbt/--no-builtin-tools` flags were removed and now fail as unknown options" ], "metrics": { "kind": "local", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 4, "avgRating": 2.8, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "C", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 60.5 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 73, "maintenance": 79, "payments": 60, "reliability": 65, "schema": 42, "security": 50, "transparency": 67 }, "provenanceScore": 61 }, "connect": { "install": "curl -fsSL https://app.primeintellect.ai/prime-agent/install.sh | sh" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/agent.harness", "tool": "https://letme.dev/prime-agent" }, "area": "frameworks", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Prime Intellect, Inc.", "domain": "primeintellect.ai", "domainRegistered": "", "endpointOnVendorDomain": null, "terms": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/terms-of-service", "privacy": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/privacy-policy", "statusPage": "https://status.primeintellect.ai", "changelog": "https://github.com/PrimeIntellect-ai/prime-agent/releases", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-08", "notes": [ "The site footer, terms and privacy policy name Prime Intellect, Inc. of Dover, Delaware. The repository LICENSE names Prime Intellect Ltd. as copyright holder.", "www.primeintellect.ai/.well-known/security.txt returned 404 on 8 October 2026. A security policy with a reporting address is at https://www.primeintellect.ai/security.", "The status page covers Prime Intellect's hosted platform (API, inference, sandboxes), not the locally run agent.", "The LICENSE adds that the software is a port of the Prime Agent TypeScript product, originally copyright 2025 Mario Zechner, used under the MIT licence. GitHub's licence detector reports the file as unrecognised." ], "score": 61 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.json", "live": { "slug": "prime-agent", "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.primeintellect.ai", "indicator": "unknown", "summary": "no machine-readable status found", "checkedAt": "2026-10-17T22:51:44.78440776Z" }, "versions": [ { "registry": "github", "name": "PrimeIntellect-ai/prime-agent", "version": "v0.10.0", "released": "2026-10-09", "seenAt": "2026-10-17T02:11:40.230410711Z" } ], "githubStars": 22065, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://primeintellect.ai/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "none", "checkedAt": "2026-10-17T15:51:48.06817233Z" }, "domain": { "domain": "primeintellect.ai", "registered": "2023-08-22", "source": "https://rdap.identitydigital.services/rdap/domain/primeintellect.ai", "checkedAt": "2026-10-11T13:24:04.117870769Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/privacy-policy", "kind": "privacy", "status": 304, "checkedAt": "2026-10-17T23:19:19.427855304Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-16T22:40:19.183107547Z", "fingerprint": "bb7d733da519" }, { "url": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/terms-of-service", "kind": "terms", "status": 304, "checkedAt": "2026-10-17T23:19:21.584696973Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-16T22:40:21.483306034Z", "fingerprint": "5901c2293df5" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-17T23:19:21.584696973Z" } }, "facts": [ { "a": "Agent harness", "b": "Agent harness", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "Autonomous, Inc.", "b": "Prime Intellect", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "no (local only)", "b": "no (local only)", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "stdio", "b": "", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "OAuth", "b": "None", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Free", "b": "Free", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "MIT", "b": "MIT", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "7", "b": "none", "name": "Tools exposed" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "no", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "2026-10-17", "b": "2026-10-07", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "", "b": "no date given", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "", "b": "no date given", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "", "b": "yes", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" }, { "a": "1.3k stars", "b": "22k stars", "name": "Popularity" }, { "a": "3/5 (4)", "b": "2.8/5 (4)", "name": "Agent reviews" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "Prime Agent and Harness score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.3 (C). Harness leads on schema \u0026 documentation, agent ergonomics and security \u0026 auth.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, Harness or Prime Agent?" }, { "answer": "Yes. Harness is open source (MIT). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).", "question": "Are Harness and Prime Agent open source?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": [ "Schema \u0026 documentation, 85 against 42", "Agent ergonomics, 82 against 73", "Security \u0026 auth, 57 against 50" ], "also": [ "Runs on your own machine" ], "goodFor": "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.", "slug": "harness-autonomous", "watchFor": "Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser and an experimental account switch, off by default" }, { "aheadOn": [ "Reliability, 65 against 35", "Payments \u0026 pricing, 60 against 40", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 79 against 60" ], "also": [ "No key needed to call it" ], "goodFor": "Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.", "slug": "prime-agent", "watchFor": "No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox" } ], "job": { "capability": "agent.multi-agent", "name": "Multi-agent orchestration" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Agent Zero vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Aider vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Amp vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Antigravity CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Claude Code vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Cline vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Cursor CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Devin vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Droid CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Pi vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Gemini CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "GitHub Copilot CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "goose vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "HarnessRouter vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kilo-code-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Kilo Code CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kilo-code-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Kiro CLI vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-code-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Muse Code vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-code-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-codex-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "OpenAI Codex vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-codex-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencode-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "OpenCode vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencode-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "OpenHands vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-qwen-code.json", "title": "Prime Agent vs Qwen Code", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-qwen-code" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.json", "title": "Prime Agent vs Mirror CLI", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-reflection-mirror" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Amp vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Antigravity CLI vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Claude Code vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "CLI Manager vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "CLI Manager vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Cline vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Devin vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Droid CLI vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "Gemini CLI vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness-autonomous.json", "title": "goose vs Harness", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness-autonomous" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-harnessrouter.json", "title": "Harness vs HarnessRouter", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-harnessrouter" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kilo-code-cli.json", "title": "Harness vs Kilo Code CLI", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kilo-code-cli" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kiro-cli.json", "title": "Harness vs Kiro CLI", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kiro-cli" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-muse-code.json", "title": "Harness vs Muse Code", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-muse-code" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-opencode.json", "title": "Harness vs OpenCode", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-opencode" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openhands.json", "title": "Harness vs OpenHands", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openhands" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paperclip.json", "title": "Harness vs Paperclip", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paperclip" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-parallax-agents.json", "title": "Harness vs Parallax", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-parallax-agents" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.json", "title": "Harness vs Qwen Code", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-reflection-mirror.json", "title": "Harness vs Mirror CLI", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-reflection-mirror" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paperclip-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Paperclip vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paperclip-vs-prime-agent" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallax-agents-vs-prime-agent.json", "title": "Parallax vs Prime Agent", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallax-agents-vs-prime-agent" } ], "scores": [ { "by": 30, "edge": "prime-agent", "harness-autonomous": 35, "key": "reliability", "name": "Reliability", "prime-agent": 65, "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "by": 43, "edge": "harness-autonomous", "harness-autonomous": 85, "key": "schema", "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "prime-agent": 42, "weight": 13 }, { "by": 9, "edge": "harness-autonomous", "harness-autonomous": 82, "key": "ergonomics", "name": "Agent ergonomics", "prime-agent": 73, "weight": 13 }, { "by": 7, "edge": "harness-autonomous", "harness-autonomous": 57, "key": "security", "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "prime-agent": 50, "weight": 14 }, { "by": 20, "edge": "prime-agent", "harness-autonomous": 40, "key": "payments", "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "prime-agent": 60, "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "by": 19, "edge": "prime-agent", "harness-autonomous": 60, "key": "maintenance", "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "prime-agent": 79, "weight": 7 }, { "by": 4, "edge": "harness-autonomous", "harness-autonomous": 68, "key": "transparency", "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "prime-agent": 64, "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "Prime Agent and Harness score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.3 (C). Harness leads on schema \u0026 documentation, agent ergonomics and security \u0026 auth. Both do multi-agent orchestration.", "tutorials": [], "verdicts": { "harness-autonomous": "An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on this or another of their machines, through documented CLI commands and seven annotated MCP tools with exit codes. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental switch that is off by default, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by 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." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.md", "mcp": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.min.md" }, "markdown": "Prime Agent and Harness score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.3 (C). Harness leads on schema \u0026 documentation, agent ergonomics and security \u0026 auth. Both do multi-agent orchestration.\n\n- Harness: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #570 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json\n- Prime Agent: grade C, 60.5/100, rank #559 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json\n- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md\n- All 331 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### Harness (C)\n\nGood 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.\n\nAhead on:\n- Schema \u0026 documentation, 85 against 42\n- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 73\n- Security \u0026 auth, 57 against 50\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- Runs on your own machine\n\nWatch for: Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser and an experimental account switch, off by default\n\n### Prime Agent (C)\n\nGood 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.\n\nAhead on:\n- Reliability, 65 against 35\n- Payments \u0026 pricing, 60 against 40\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 79 against 60\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- No key needed to call it\n\nWatch for: No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox\n\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | Harness | Prime Agent | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 65 | Prime Agent +30 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 42 | Harness +43 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 73 | Harness +9 |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 50 | Harness +7 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Prime Agent +20 |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 79 | Prime Agent +19 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 64 | Harness +4 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |\n| **Total** | | **60.3 · C** | **60.5 · C** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | Harness | Prime Agent |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |\n| Vendor | Autonomous, Inc. | Prime Intellect |\n| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |\n| Transports | stdio | |\n| Auth | OAuth | None |\n| Pricing | Free | Free |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| Licence | MIT | MIT |\n| Tools exposed | 7 | none |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | yes | no |\n| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-07 |\n| Terms last updated | | no date given |\n| Privacy policy last updated | | no date given |\n| Customer content may train models | | not found in the text |\n| Terms restrict automated access | | yes |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | | yes |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | | yes |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | | yes |\n| Popularity | 1.3k stars | 22k stars |\n| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2.8/5 (4) |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**Harness.** An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on this or another of their machines, through documented CLI commands and seven annotated MCP tools with exit codes. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental switch that is off by default, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by default.\n\n**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.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### Harness\n\n1. Run `harness whoami` first. If it says you may not start harnesses, tell the person and do the work yourself\n2. Ask the person before installing Harness, and leave `harness login` and the agents-start-agents switch to them\n3. 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\n4. Name every harness, put the whole task in `harness new`, then wait, read with `harness show` and close only the ones you started\n5. Run each `harness` command on its own or joined with `\u0026\u0026`, since piped commands no longer match the permission rule\n\n### Prime Agent\n\n1. 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\n2. Set `PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine\n3. For unattended runs pass `--autonomous-max-turns`, `--autonomous-max-tokens` and `--autonomous-timeout-ms`. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded\n4. Headless use is `-p` with `--mode json` per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because `/login` is interactive\n5. The `-t/--tools`, `-nt/--no-tools` and `-nbt/--no-builtin-tools` flags were removed and now fail as unknown options\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, Harness or Prime Agent?\n\nPrime Agent and Harness score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.3 (C). Harness leads on schema \u0026 documentation, agent ergonomics and security \u0026 auth.\n\n### Are Harness and Prime Agent open source?\n\nYes. Harness is open source (MIT). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"harness-autonomous\", \"b\": \"prime-agent\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare harness-autonomous prime-agent`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json\n\n## Other comparisons with Harness or Prime Agent\n\n- [Agent Zero vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Aider vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Amp vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Antigravity CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Claude Code vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Cline vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Cursor CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Devin vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Droid CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Pi vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Gemini CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [goose vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [HarnessRouter vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Kilo Code CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kilo-code-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Kiro CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Muse Code vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-code-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [OpenAI Codex vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-codex-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [OpenCode vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencode-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [OpenHands vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Prime Agent vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-qwen-code.md)\n- [Prime Agent vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.md)\n- [Amp vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [Claude Code vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [CLI Manager vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [CLI Manager vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Cline vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [Devin vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [Droid CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [Gemini CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [goose vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness-autonomous.md)\n- [Harness vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-harnessrouter.md)\n- [Harness vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)\n- [Harness vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kiro-cli.md)\n- [Harness vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-muse-code.md)\n- [Harness vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-opencode.md)\n- [Harness vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openhands.md)\n- [Harness vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paperclip.md)\n- [Harness vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-parallax-agents.md)\n- [Harness vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.md)\n- [Harness vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-reflection-mirror.md)\n- [Paperclip vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paperclip-vs-prime-agent.md)\n- [Parallax vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallax-agents-vs-prime-agent.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "attributionRequired": true, "credit": "CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-10-18", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.4", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "terms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" }, { "name": "Compare", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/" }, { "name": "Harness vs Prime Agent", "url": "" } ], "description": "Prime Agent and Harness score within a point of each other for multi-agent orchestration, 60.5 and 60.3 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.", "facts": [ "Harness C 60.3", "Prime Agent C 60.5", "scores" ], "h1": "Harness vs Prime Agent", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/compare-harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.png", "path": "/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "Harness vs Prime Agent for AI agents in 2026: scores and prices", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-10-17", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 2950, "slim": 630 }, "version": 1 }