# Harness² vs Qoder CLI

> Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) to Harness²'s 41.6 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Harness² leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Harness²: grade E, 41.6/100, rank #1040 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json
- Qoder CLI: grade C, 59.3/100, rank #609 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qoder-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qoder-cli.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 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.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Qoder CLI loses 3 points for them

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

### Qoder CLI (C)

Good for: Developers already on Qoder who want the same agent in a terminal, in CI through a PAT, in Zed through ACP, or embedded through the Agent SDK.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 51 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 51
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 59
- Security & auth, 55 against 44
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 44

Also in its favour:
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for: No local sandbox is documented, and `auto` mode approves read-only tools on any path


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Harness² | Qoder CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 20 | 51 | Qoder CLI +31 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 81 | Qoder CLI +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 80 | Qoder CLI +21 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 55 | Qoder CLI +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | Harness² +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 36 | 72 | Qoder CLI +36 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 44 | 64 | Qoder CLI +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **41.6 · E** | **59.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness² | Qoder CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Google (Google Research) | Qoder (BRIGHT ZENITH PRIVATE LIMITED) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| 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). | Proprietary, under the Qoder Terms of Service (BRIGHT ZENITH PRIVATE LIMITED, last updated 29 April 2026). No source is published, and the Agent SDK's LICENSE file points to the same terms |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked |  |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 4.2k stars | 5k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Qoder CLI.** A closed-source terminal agent with a documented headless mode, an ACP server, typed TypeScript and Python SDKs and near-daily releases. Permission rules and modes are detailed, but no local sandbox is documented, usage statistics are on by default, and security fixes appear only as one-line release notes with no advisories or disclosure policy.

## 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

### Qoder CLI

1. Set `QODER_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN` in CI. The browser sign-in can't complete in a headless run
2. Pass `--permission-mode` with `--allowed-tools` in headless runs. Every ask is denied, and `--yolo` removes all checks
3. Set `--max-turns` on unattended runs, and branch on exit codes 41 (authentication) and 53 (turn limit)
4. Set `privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled` and `aiCodeStatistics.enabled` to false in ~/.qoder/settings.json if usage data must stay local
5. Don't pass `--model lite`. The Lite tier was removed on 18 September 2026 and headless requests naming it fail

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Harness² or Qoder CLI?

Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Harness² leads on payments & pricing.

### Are Harness² and Qoder CLI open source?

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).). No open-source release is listed for Qoder CLI.


## For agents

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

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