# mini-swe-agent vs Mirror CLI

> mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) to Mirror CLI's 54.2 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.md (~3,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-18

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.

- mini-swe-agent: grade C, 56.7/100, rank #698 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.json
- Mirror CLI: grade C, 54.2/100, rank #772 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/reflection-mirror.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/reflection-mirror.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### mini-swe-agent (C)

Good 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

### Mirror CLI (C)

Good 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 | mini-swe-agent | Mirror CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 37 | mini-swe-agent +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 65 | Mirror CLI +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 58 | mini-swe-agent +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 58 | Mirror CLI +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 47 | mini-swe-agent +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 58 | Mirror CLI +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **56.7 · C** | **54.2 · C** | |

## 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

1. Run with `-y --exit-immediately` for unattended use. Without `--exit-immediately` it waits for input when the agent finishes
2. Set `MSWEA_CONFIGURED=true` and `MSWEA_MODEL_NAME` first, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt
3. Read `info.exit_status` in the `-o` trajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally
4. 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
5. Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command

### 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, 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).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-reflection-mirror.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "mini-swe-agent", "b": "reflection-mirror"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare mini-swe-agent reflection-mirror`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/reflection-mirror.json

## Other comparisons with mini-swe-agent or Mirror CLI

- [Agent Zero vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Aider vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Aider vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Amp vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Amp vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Claude Code vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Claude Code vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Cline vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Cline vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Crush vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Crush vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
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- [Devin vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
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- [Droid CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Pi vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Pi vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
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- [goose vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp