Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Jules vs Sculptor

Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) on agent readiness against Jules's 45.1 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Jules leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Jules E

Best for Nobody starting new work, since Jules turns read-only after 11 November 2026 and ends on 31 December 2026.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 76 against 45
  • Agent ergonomics, 64 against 50

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

Jules turns read-only after 11 November 2026 and winds down on 31 December 2026, per the changelog of 29 October

Sculptor D

Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces and are fine with a research preview.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 43 against 13
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 18
  • Transparency & trust, 57 against 51

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

Labelled an experimental research preview that may change drastically

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community Sculptor +57

Jules 18

Closed service. The newest API or product change is the changelog entry of 9 March 2026, 241 days before 5 November (0). The changelog's 29 October 2026 entry announces the wind-down and an export route through the CLI, which is a notice, not an API change. No package releases, commits or tags in the 90 days, and the jules-sdk repository's last commit is 18 March 2026 (0). A public changelog and a Discord channel. The 18 October issue and pull request counts came from shields.io badges and are struck (8 of 15, a partial held). The official TypeScript SDK and MCP packages last published 0.2.0 on 9 March 2026, per the 18 October registry reading, and no official MCP registry entry could be read (5). The SDK has a CI workflow on pull requests whose results couldn't be read, and two runtime dependencies. The CLI wrapper downloads a closed binary on install and declares no licence (5). 0 + 0 + 8 + 5 + 5 = 18.

Sculptor 75

Commits on 6 November 2026 and frequent tagged versions (30). More than three releases in 90 days (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent; the README says Imbue can't take many outside contributions yet (0). Current official downloads (15). CI on pull requests (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.

Schema & documentation Jules +31

Jules 76

API reading. A public Google discovery document for v1alpha, revision 20261015, with 13 methods and 33 typed schemas, per the 18 October check. It sits on the API's own host and wasn't requested again (25). docs/llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every docs page (10). Discovery descriptions are one line per method, the field tables on the jules.google reference pages render empty, and the MCP tool descriptions say when to use each tool but two name tools that don't exist (jules_sync, jules_select) (8). Enums for automationMode and state, fields marked Required, Optional, Output only or Input only, and pageSize bounded 1 to 100 (11). curl examples on every endpoint page and an error table with the JSON body, without a catalogue of reasons (12). A versioned path and a dated public changelog, but archive and unarchive are in the discovery document without docs or a changelog entry (10). 25 + 10 + 8 + 11 + 12 + 10 = 76.

Sculptor 45

Harness reading. A README, specs and agent docs in the repository; no API reference (45).

Reliability Sculptor +30

Jules 13

Hosted reading. No status page for Jules was found (0). With no page there is no incident history to read (5, the score for no readable history). The plans page, re-read on 5 November, publishes task quotas with numbers, 15, 100 and 300 tasks a rolling 24 hours and 3, 15 and 60 concurrent, and list pageSize is capped at 100, but no request rate figures were found (8 of 15). 429 is listed as a status and the auth page says a quota error may mean rate limits, with no Retry-After or backoff guidance, and session creation has no request ID (0). No SLA found (0). The API is v1alpha and labelled experimental, and the changelog of 29 October 2026 says Jules turns read-only after 11 November (0). 0 + 5 + 8 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 13.

Sculptor 43

Local software. Desktop downloads for Mac (Apple Silicon), Linux and Linux ARM64 (20). checks.yml and a PR gate run on the repository; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). sculptor-v tags up to v0.49.0, no changelog file (8). 0.x and labelled a research preview (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 8 + 0 = 43.

Payments & pricing Sculptor +30

Jules 30

Published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plans and their Jules limits are public without a login, and Jules sits inside the Google AI plans. The prices render per locale and weren't read, and there's no per-task price (10). A free plan of 15 tasks a day with a Google account, and no card step in the sign-up docs, until new tasks stop after 11 November 2026 (20). A person signs in, accepts the privacy notice, installs the GitHub app and creates the key in the web app (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.

Sculptor 60

Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy, so 0 for a protocol and 20 each for public pricing, a free tier and onboarding with no sign-up, 60.

Agent ergonomics Jules +14

Jules 64

API and MCP reading, per the 18 October check. Responses can be sized with pageSize, the standard fields parameter and a create_time filter that fetches only new activities. The MCP server has 8 tools, and query_cache takes a token budget (20). Token pagination on every list and filters on sessions, activities and sources (16). Google's error JSON with status and an ErrorInfo reason, plus a documented status table (14). No idempotency key on session creation and no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations on the MCP tools, with requirePlanApproval as the only gate before work starts (4). Only prompt is required and a session without a source runs repoless. One official SDK, in TypeScript, plus the MCP server and CLI (10). 20 + 16 + 14 + 4 + 10 = 64.

Sculptor 50

Harness reading. Workspaces as isolated copies, review and merge back, and built-in skills (50).

Transparency & trust Sculptor +6

Jules 51

Editorial half. Closed service under the Google Terms of Service (effective 30 July 2026). The SDK is Apache-2.0, but npm lists @google/jules-mcp as ISC while its README says Apache-2.0, and @google/jules declares no licence (12). The FAQ says private repositories aren't used for training. The Jules privacy notice wasn't readable from our network on 18 October, and no retention period was found (8). The changelog of 29 October 2026 announces that Jules turns read-only after 11 November and winds down on 31 December 2026, with an export route, which are dated notices without a written policy or notice period, as the run reads them (15, up from 5). No subprocessor or data location statement found (0). 12 + 8 + 15 + 0 = 35.

Sculptor 57

MIT (30). Consent-based telemetry documented in the repository (18 of 30). The README warns of drastic changes during the research preview, with no deprecation policy (5). Opt-in telemetry (20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 20 = 73.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runJulesSculptorEdge
Reliability16%201343Sculptor +30
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27645Jules +31
Agent ergonomics13%16.26450Jules +14
Security & auth14%17.55757even
Payments & pricing10%12.53060Sculptor +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81875Sculptor +57
Transparency & trust7%8.85157Sculptor +6
Negative events≤1500
TotalE 45.1/100D 53.1/100

Facts side by side

FactJulesSculptor
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorGoogle LLCImbue, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Google Terms of Service. The TypeScript SDK is Apache-2.0; the CLI binary is closedMIT
Tools exposed8none
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-03-092026-11-06
Terms last updated2026-07-30no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-01no document linked
Customer content may train modelsyesnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot read yet
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Jules

Google is winding Jules down. Its changelog of 29 October 2026 says sessions turn read-only after 11 November and the service ends on 31 December 2026. Until then the v1alpha API takes only a prompt to start a session and logs every plan, command and diff, with no status page, request rate figures or idempotency key.

Sculptor

Imbue's open-source app for parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces, with telemetry off until you choose otherwise. It's an experimental research preview that warns of bugs and drastic changes, Mac and Linux only, with no changelog.

Before you call either

Jules

  1. Don't start new work on Jules. Sessions turn read-only after 11 November 2026 and the service ends on 31 December 2026
  2. Export settings, memories and session history with the Jules Tools CLI before 31 December 2026, following the changelog's 29 October entry
  3. Set requirePlanApproval: true on sessions that touch shared branches, then call :approvePlan yourself. API sessions otherwise run their plan without review
  4. Session creation has no request ID. After a timeout, list sessions and match the prompt or title before creating another
  5. Poll activities with a create_time filter and cache them. Activities never change once written

Sculptor

  1. Download from the README's links, connect a repository and create a workspace before prompting
  2. Review the diff before merging a workspace back to main

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Jules or Sculptor?

Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) on agent readiness against Jules's 45.1 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Jules leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.

Are Jules and Sculptor open source?

No open-source release is listed for Jules. Sculptor is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Jules or Sculptor

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