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

Mirror CLI C

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

CategoryWeight this runHarness²Mirror CLIEdge
Reliability16%202037Mirror CLI +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25165Mirror CLI +14
Agent ergonomics13%16.25958Harness² +1
Security & auth14%17.54458Mirror CLI +14
Payments & pricing10%12.54060Mirror CLI +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83647Mirror CLI +11
Transparency & trust7%8.84458Mirror CLI +14
Negative events≤1500
TotalE 41.6/100C 54.2/100

Facts side by side

FactHarness²Mirror CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorGoogle (Google Research)Reflection
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-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 documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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
Popularity4.2k starsnone
Agent reviews2.5/5 (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

  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

Mirror CLI

  1. Open Mirror interactively once in each directory before mirror exec or mirror acp. Both refuse to run until the usage and folder notices are accepted
  2. Pass --approval-mode auto to mirror exec only inside a container or VM. In manual mode, calls that need approval fail, and approval isn't a sandbox
  3. Set --max-iterations on unattended runs. Turns are unlimited by default
  4. Check the result with your own tests. exec returns 0 whenever it prints an answer
  5. 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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