# HarnessRouter vs Verdent (slim)

> HarnessRouter scores 47.7 (D) to Verdent's 39.7 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-verdent.md (~7,350 tokens) · this version ~3,480 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-verdent.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-verdent
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

HarnessRouter scores 47.7 (D) on agent readiness against Verdent's 39.7 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Verdent leads on reliability. Both do agent harnesses.

- HarnessRouter: D 47.7, rank #1144 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harnessrouter.min.md
- Verdent: E 39.7, rank #1336 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/verdent.min.md
- HarnessRouter, good for A product team that wants to run Codex, Claude Code, Hermes or 27 other harnesses server-side behind one task, session and file contract, and switch between them by changing an ID. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 83 against 55; Agent ergonomics, 73 against 35; Security & auth, 60 against 33; Payments & pricing, 25 against 20; Maintenance & community, 72 against 61; Transparency & trust, 73 against 55. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Open source.
- Verdent, good for A person who wants a desktop app to plan and run several coding tasks at once, possibly on their own Claude Code or Codex. Ahead on Reliability, 43 against 35.

| Category | HarnessRouter | Verdent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 35 | 43 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 83 | 55 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 35 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 60 | 33 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 25 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 72 | 61 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 73 | 55 |

| Fact (where they differ) | HarnessRouter | Verdent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | HarnessRouter (Lumentree Corporation) | Verdent AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.harnessrouter.ai` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Paid |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 for the Community Edition server and the UHP specification, schema and conformance suite. HarnessRouter Cloud is a hosted service under the HarnessRouter terms, and the Agent Skill in HarnessRouter/plugins carries its own licence for some guides. | Proprietary. The terms of use from Verdent AI, Inc. forbid reverse engineering or copying any component, and no source is published |
| Tools exposed | 0 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-05-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-30 | 2026-05-26 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 4.1k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Agent ergonomics, HarnessRouter +38: HarnessRouter 73 (API reading. Sessions, turns and files are separate reads, and list endpoints take limit and cursor, but there's no field selection on a response (15 of 25). Cursor paging on session and memory lists with a bounded limit, and few filters found (14 of 20). One error envelope with type, code, param and detail, a closed code set, a retry rule per code and a 422 that lists every failed field without echoing the body (18 of 20). Idempotency-Key on task creation, reuse only for the same request, recover from the session after a drop, and an explicit cancel because closing the stream doesn't stop work (18 of 20). Only input is required to run a task, and budgets default to 400 steps, 7,200 seconds and $10. No official SDK, only the OpenAI Responses shape, clients generated from the OpenAPI file and an Agent Skill (8 of 15). 73 in all.); Verdent 35 (Harness reading. MCP servers per project or globally, subagents, skills and rules, but no per-tool disabling or deferred loading found (10). No output-size, turn-limit or budget controls for a run were found beyond credit balances (5). No exit codes or error format, since there is no headless mode (3). Parallel workers in git worktrees and a review column make runs reviewable and reversible, with no resume by ID documented (10). No CLI, API or SDK. A pipeline can only reach Manager through a paired Telegram, Slack or Feishu bot (7). 10+5+3+10+7 = 35.)
- Schema & documentation, HarnessRouter +28: HarnessRouter 83 (API reading. UHP's OpenAPI 3.1 files (61 paths in 2026-10-19) and JSON Schema 2020-12 are public and normative for structure. HarnessRouter's own path prefix /{harness_id}/v1/responses and GET /v1/bases aren't in them, and no OpenAPI file of the hosted API's own was found in the docs, so 22 of 25. llms.txt, llms-full.txt, agents.md, docs.md, pricing.md and harnesses.md (10). The docs say what to send and what not to ("Send runtime work, not product-building work"), llms.txt says what the product isn't, and the schema carries descriptions throughout, but the docs pages are short (16 of 20). Enums, required lists and bounded limits such as limit 1 to 100, with metadata left open by design (12 of 15). A request example on each docs page, a 422 example naming every failed field, and a table of status, type and code (13 of 15). Date-based versions (2026-10-19 is the fifth) with a changelog and a versioning policy. Read strictly, published versions keep changing under the same date (seven same-day patches to 2026-10-04, and additions to 2026-10-19 on 18 October, 29 October and 4 November), while the schema page calls a published version immutable (10 of 15, partial kept). The conformance page and the suite's README now agree on 101 checks. 22 + 10 + 16 + 12 + 13 + 10 = 83.); Verdent 55 (Framework reading for a harness. No schema for settings or output, only mcp.json examples in the standard mcpServers shape (5). Every current docs page has a Markdown twin at the same path with .md, though no llms.txt (10). The docs say when to use Agent Mode or Plan Mode and what Plan Mode can't do, but the Agent Mode page lists the actions that need approval only as "certain tool executions" and "destructive operations" (12). Modes and BYOA agent types are enumerated, permissions are not (5). Examples on the MCP, BYOA and messaging pages, and a recovery page, with no error codes (8). Version numbers and a dated public changelog (15). The archived 1.0 docs are still served beside the current ones. 5+10+12+5+8+15 = 55.)
- Security & auth, HarnessRouter +27: HarnessRouter 60 (Hosted reading. Bearer Workspace API keys, revocable at once through the API, held to one workspace or reaching the organisation, with harness-bound calibration credentials. No OAuth, per-endpoint scopes or expiry found (20 of 30). Least privilege 10 of 20. disabled_tools per configured agent, enforced by the runtime only where GET /v1/bases says hard, and per-turn cost and step caps, with no approval step for actions a harness takes. Prompt injection 10 of 15. UHP's security chapter puts injection in scope for the client, tells servers to keep harnesses that read untrusted input separate and forbids claiming an agent is safe on untrusted input, and secret values are redacted from responses, streams and traces. Operator visibility 10 of 15. A cost breakdown per task on every plan, and the step-by-step trace is beta, included in Scale or $50 a month. Security programme 10 of 20 (was 8). A disclosure policy (v1.0, effective 30 July 2026) with safe harbour and no bounty, SECURITY.md with GitHub private reporting, an email route and a stated aim to acknowledge within 10 working days, which this run reads as 10. GHSA identifiers are cited in public fix commits; no security.txt and no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 found. 20 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 60.); Verdent 33 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). Conversation history and tool results go to Verdent's US servers and on to Azure, Bedrock or Vertex, with zero data retention stated for Vertex and Bedrock only. Event logging to log.verdent.ai has no documented opt-out. BYOA keys stay on the machine (10). Plan Mode is read-only, Agent Mode asks before destructive commands and edits outside scope, and workers are isolated by git worktree, but there is no sandbox or network control and the approval list isn't enumerated (9). No prompt-injection guidance found, while web search and fetch results enter the context (2). Usage history in the dashboard, no audit log found (5). A security page with a disclosure address and a five-day acknowledgement, SOC 2 and ISO/IEC 42001 being pursued rather than held, no security.txt and no bug bounty (7). 10+9+2+5+7 = 33.)
- Transparency & trust, HarnessRouter +18: HarnessRouter 73 (Editorial half. The server, specification, schema and conformance suite are Apache-2.0. The Cloud's own billing and deployment wasn't confirmed to match the open code, and the Agent Skill has a custom licence for some guides (25 of 30). The privacy policy, DPA, subprocessor list and a retention page agree. Customer content isn't used for training without an opt-in, and periods are stated (tasks deleted at once, agents and files after 30 days, backups within 14 days, credentials within 90, free-plan task records 7 days). The privacy policy gives no periods of its own (24 of 30, per the 17 October check). Deprecation 15 of 20 (was 14). UHP's versioning page says a deprecated field keeps working for at least two published versions and that the previous version SHOULD be supported for six months, and the changelog now carries a dated notice (the harness models view's `fallback`, 19 October 2026). The rule is counted in versions, not time, so dated notices give 15. Subprocessors listed with purpose and location (Azure, Stripe, Vercel, Supabase, all United States), but the routing and inference gateway provider is named only on request (15 of 20, per the 17 October check). 25 + 24 + 15 + 15 = 79. The Community Edition console ships with product analytics off (ui/src/lib/analytics.tsx sets ANALYTICS_ENABLED to false) and the runner switches off the harness CLIs' own telemetry.); Verdent 55 (Proprietary, under terms from Verdent AI, Inc. that are clear on use and ownership (15). The privacy policy and security page agree that data stays in the US and that input isn't trained on without consent, and the security page lists subprocessors. The privacy policy gives no retention periods, names MiniMax as a provider the security list leaves out, and deletion is by email request (14). The credit bonus carries a promise of 15 days' notice, but Free Mode was retired on the day v2.18.0 shipped and no deprecation policy was found (6). Subprocessors and their locations are listed, and the domains the app calls are named, with event logging undescribed (12). 15+14+6+12 = 47.)
- Maintenance & community, HarnessRouter +11: HarnessRouter 72 (Open-source reading of the repository behind the hosted service. Last tag v0.38.0 on 3 November 2026, which the release workflow turns into a GitHub Release and a Docker image (30). 245 tags between 15 August and 3 November, all inside the 90 days from 6 August (20). GitHub's issue pages and API refused this session, so open issues and reply times are unchecked. Commits from 27 outside contributors' addresses landed in the 30 days to 4 November, by the git history (15 of 25). No official SDK and no MCP server to register (0). A tests workflow runs every suite on each pull request and push to main, with a release workflow and a Docker image, but whether the default branch passes is unchecked (7 of 10). 30 + 20 + 15 + 0 + 7 = 72.); Verdent 61 (Closed service. v2.18.0 on 29 October 2026, eight days before this check (30). More than three dated releases in the 90 days from 8 August, among them 2.10.0 to 2.18.0 (20). A dated public changelog, a support address, Discord and a subreddit, with no public tracker to read reply times (8). No official SDK or MCP server to keep current (0). No public packages or CI to judge (3). 30+20+8+0+3 = 61.)
- Reliability, Verdent +8: HarnessRouter 35 (Hosted reading, for HarnessRouter Cloud at api.harnessrouter.ai, as on 17 October. No status page (status.harnessrouter.ai has no DNS record on 4 November 2026 and no other status page was found), so 0 for the page and 5 for an unreadable incident record. No request rate limit with numbers was found. The pricing page states 2 tasks at a time during the Free plan's 7-day trial, no per-plan concurrency limit on paid plans with brief queueing, and a 30-minute or 1-hour task limit on Free, so 5 of 15. 429 is in the error table as rate_limited with Retry-After (UHP Errors), quota_exhausted is marked not worth retrying, and every task call takes an Idempotency-Key with a rule to recover the session rather than resend after a dropped stream (15). Terms §5.4 still give no service level outside a signed Order Form (0). The task API isn't labelled beta, while tracing and agent memory are (10). 0 + 5 + 5 + 15 + 0 + 10 = 35.); Verdent 43 (Local-package reading, as for the other closed-source harnesses. The desktop app installs from verdent.ai with macOS 11 or later and 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 stated, and the extension from the editor marketplaces, but not from a package registry (15). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). No public issue tracker, every task runs through Verdent's servers, and no status page was found, so there is no readable record (5). A dated changelog by version, with the end of Free Mode called out in v2.18.0, but no breaking-change sections (8). 2.18.0, generally available (15). 15+0+5+8+15 = 43.)