Harness² vs Kilo Code CLI

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.

Kilo Code CLI

Shell commands ask before running by default, and an optional operating-system sandbox blocks writes outside the workspace and outbound network. Telemetry to PostHog is on by default and the sandbox is off, so an unattended kilo run --auto approves everything not denied unless both are configured first.

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

Kilo Code CLI

1. Set sandbox.enabled to true in the global kilo.jsonc before kilo run --auto. --auto approves every permission request not explicitly denied
2. Set experimental.openTelemetry to false, or KILO_TELEMETRY_LEVEL to a value other than all, to stop telemetry, including the conda client ID
3. Add needed hosts to sandbox.allowed_hosts in global config. MCP tool calls are unavailable while network restriction is on
4. Without --auto a non-interactive run rejects every permission prompt and exits 1
5. Confine subagent writes with a session-level edit rule. From 7.8.13 a custom agent's own edit denies no longer bind the subagents it starts