Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
mini-swe-agent vs Mirror CLI
mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) on agent readiness against Mirror CLI's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Mirror CLI leads on schema & documentation and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 70 against 37
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 58
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
Watch for
The default local environment runs commands on the host with no isolation and the full host environment
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
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 58
- Transparency & trust, 58 against 51
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where mini-swe-agent loses 4 points for them
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 | mini-swe-agent | Mirror CLI | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 70 | 37 | mini-swe-agent +33 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 58 | 65 | Mirror CLI +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 69 | 58 | mini-swe-agent +11 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 56 | 58 | Mirror CLI +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 49 | 47 | mini-swe-agent +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 51 | 58 | Mirror CLI +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| Total | C 56.7/100 | C 54.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | mini-swe-agent | Mirror CLI |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) | Reflection |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 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 | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |
Verdicts
mini-swe-agent
A small, readable harness with one bash tool, a linear trajectory saved as JSON, and step, cost and wall-time limits that stop unattended runs cleanly. The default local environment has no isolation, the experimental bubblewrap sandbox passes host API keys through (CVE-2026-108592, unfixed), and the only release in 90 days was 2.4.6 on 23 July 2026.
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
mini-swe-agent
- Run with
-y --exit-immediatelyfor unattended use. Without--exit-immediatelyit waits for input when the agent finishes - Set
MSWEA_CONFIGURED=trueandMSWEA_MODEL_NAMEfirst, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt - Read
info.exit_statusin the-otrajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally - For untrusted repositories use
-c mini.yaml -c environment.environment_class=docker -c environment.image=<image>. The local and bubblewrap environments both expose host variables - Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command
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, mini-swe-agent or Mirror CLI?
mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) on agent readiness against Mirror CLI's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Mirror CLI leads on schema & documentation and transparency & trust.
Are mini-swe-agent and Mirror CLI open source?
Yes. mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT). Mirror CLI is open source (Apache-2.0).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.json·/api/v1/tools/reflection-mirror.json - From a terminal
anchor compare mini-swe-agent reflection-mirror(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "mini-swe-agent", "b": "reflection-mirror"}at/mcp, no key