# Jules vs Sculptor (slim)

> Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) to Jules's 45.1 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jules-vs-sculptor.md (~5,700 tokens) · this version ~2,280 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jules-vs-sculptor.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jules-vs-sculptor
- 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)

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.

- Jules: E 45.1, rank #1203 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jules.min.md
- Sculptor: D 53.1, rank #966 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sculptor.min.md
- Jules, good 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 Runs on your own machine.
- Sculptor, good 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 No key needed to call it; Open source.

| Category | Jules | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 13 | 43 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 76 | 45 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 64 | 50 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 57 | 57 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 18 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 51 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Jules | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google LLC | Imbue, Inc. |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Google Terms of Service. The TypeScript SDK is Apache-2.0; the CLI binary is closed | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 8 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-03-09 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-30 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- 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.)