# Harness² vs OpenMausBot

> OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) to Harness²'s 42 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openmausbot
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openmausbot.md (~3,850 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openmausbot.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openmausbot.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-30

OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 42 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Harness²: grade E, 42/100, rank #1098 of 1239. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json
- OpenMausBot: grade B, 65.4/100, rank #368 of 1239. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openmausbot.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openmausbot.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 875 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Harness² (E)

Good for: Researchers who want to reproduce or extend the paper's per-task harness refinement on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench with OpenCode or Codex on Vertex AI.

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

Watch for: No hosted API, MCP server or tagged release. It installs from a source checkout only, and harness2 isn't on PyPI

### OpenMausBot (B)

Good for: A person or an outside agent who wants several CLI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Grok, ACP CLIs) organised as named bots with their own computers, routines and approvals, driven by MCP or a CLI.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 60 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 51
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 59
- Security & auth, 59 against 44
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 49

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

Watch for: New bots start at Full access, which approves provider permission requests without a card


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Harness² | OpenMausBot | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 20 | 60 | OpenMausBot +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 90 | OpenMausBot +39 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 77 | OpenMausBot +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 59 | OpenMausBot +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 50 | OpenMausBot +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 36 | 74 | OpenMausBot +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 59 | OpenMausBot +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **42 · E** | **65.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness² | OpenMausBot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Google (Google Research) | Supamaus Software Private Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | stdio |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation). | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 20 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-10 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-18 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 4.2k stars | 8.2k stars, 3.5k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**OpenMausBot.** A bounded 20-tool MCP server with typed schemas, annotations and idempotent sends, and a headless CLI with JSON output and exit codes, let another agent hand work to a bot team and wait on it. New bots start at Full access, so provider permission requests pass without a card, and usage analytics stay on until switched off.

## Before you call either

### 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

### OpenMausBot

1. Ask the owner for a pairing code from Settings > Phone, exchange it at `POST /api/auth/pair`, and set `OPENMAUSBOT_TOKEN` with an explicit `OMB_PORT`
2. Pass a `send_id` with every `send_bot_message` and `send_channel_message`, so a retry returns the first receipt
3. Use `wait_for_conversation` instead of polling, and on `needs-user` stop and tell the owner a card is waiting
4. Check a bot's access level with the owner before sending work. New bots run at Full access unless defaults were changed
5. Ask the owner to switch off Settings > General > Usage analytics if nothing beyond model calls should leave the machine

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Harness² or OpenMausBot?

OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 42 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Harness² and OpenMausBot open source?

Yes. Harness² is open source (Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation).). OpenMausBot is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openmausbot.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openmausbot.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "harness2", "b": "openmausbot"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare harness2 openmausbot`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openmausbot.json

## Other comparisons with Harness² or OpenMausBot

- [Agent Zero vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harness2.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Aider vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-harness2.md)
- [Aider vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Amp vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness2.md)
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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