Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
Harness² vs Mirror CLI
Mirror CLI scores 54.2 (C) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 354 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Harness² E
Best 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
Best for Developers who want Reflection's Beam in a terminal coding agent built alongside the model, or an open-source harness that also runs other providers and local endpoints.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 37 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 51
- Security & auth, 58 against 44
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 47 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 58 against 44
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5
Watch for
Version 0.1.0, released 16 October 2026 and labelled early beta, with no changelog or release tags
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Harness² | Mirror CLI | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 20 | 37 | Mirror CLI +17 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 51 | 65 | Mirror CLI +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 59 | 58 | Harness² +1 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 44 | 58 | Mirror CLI +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 60 | Mirror CLI +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 36 | 47 | Mirror CLI +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 44 | 58 | Mirror CLI +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | E 41.6/100 | C 54.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Harness² | Mirror CLI |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Google (Google Research) | Reflection |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| 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 |
| 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 | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 3/5 (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.
Mirror CLI
Mirror CLI is Apache-2.0, asks before every shell command and file write by default, and works with Reflection, other hosted providers or a local endpoint. It is a one-day-old 0.1.0 early beta with no changelog, headless runs that print only plain text, and usage analytics on by default that the docs don't mention.
Before you call either
Harness²
- 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
- Ask the person for a Vertex AI project, model IDs and
gcloud auth application-default loginbefore any model-backed run, and start with--max-tasks 1 - 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
- Write .env yourself with GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT, HARNESS2_SOLVER_MODEL and HARNESS2_JUDGE_MODEL, since .env.example isn't shipped, and never commit it
- Use the same benchmark, executor,
--k,--modeand seed forharness2,harness2-judgeandharness2-report, or the results won't line up
Mirror CLI
- Open Mirror interactively once in each directory before
mirror execormirror acp. Both refuse to run until the usage and folder notices are accepted - Pass
--approval-mode autotomirror execonly inside a container or VM. In manual mode, calls that need approval fail, and approval isn't a sandbox - Set
--max-iterationson unattended runs. Turns are unlimited by default - Check the result with your own tests.
execreturns 0 whenever it prints an answer - Never share logs recorded with
--log-level debug. The docs say they contain request headers with the API key
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Harness² or Mirror CLI?
Mirror CLI scores 54.2 (C) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Are Harness² and Mirror CLI 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).). Mirror CLI is open source (Apache-2.0).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/harness2-vs-reflection-mirror.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/harness2.json·/api/v1/tools/reflection-mirror.json - From a terminal
anchor compare harness2 reflection-mirror(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "harness2", "b": "reflection-mirror"}at/mcp, no key