Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
mini-swe-agent vs Sculptor
mini-swe-agent scores 59 (C) on agent readiness against Sculptor's 53.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Sculptor leads on maintenance & community. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 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, 65 against 43
- Schema & documentation, 58 against 45
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 50
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
The default local environment runs commands on the host with no isolation and the full host environment
Sculptor D
Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces and are fine with a research preview.
Ahead on
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 32
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 +43
mini-swe-agent 32
2.4.6 on PyPI on 2026-07-23, 104 days before this check, and still the newest tag (10). No release in the 90 days to 4 November (0). Main hasn't moved since 3 September (three commits since 23 July, one from pre-commit-ci). Outside fixes were merged within days through July, but no pull request has been merged since #917 (17 August), 77 of the 85 pull requests numbered after it still carry open merge refs on the git remote, and maintainer reply times couldn't be read; the 18 October shields.io counts are struck (5). The Python library ships in the same package as the CLI and is current (10). Dependabot and pre-commit-ci run, and CI workflows exist with their current state unconfirmed (7).
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.
Reliability mini-swe-agent +22
mini-swe-agent 65
Read as a local package, graded on 2.4.6, the release pip install mini-swe-agent installs, and still the newest tag on 4 November 2026. One official PyPI package with Python 3.10 or newer stated (20). A pytest workflow runs on every push to main with Podman, bubblewrap and Apptainer installed, 41 test files and Codecov coverage, but GitHub's pages refused this run, so whether main passes is unconfirmed (15). Issue counts and types couldn't be read (the 18 October counts came from shields.io, a third-party copy, and are struck). The git remote shows outside bug fixes merged through 22 July, such as #915, #896 and #886, and nothing merged into main since apart from a pre-commit update on 17 August, while 77 of the 85 pull requests numbered after #917 still carry open merge refs (10). Versions follow semver and v2's breaking changes came with a migration guide, but there's no changelog file and tags carry only a version bump (8). 2.4.6, past 1.0, though the PyPI classifier still says 3 - Alpha (12).
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.
Agent ergonomics mini-swe-agent +19
mini-swe-agent 69
Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what an agent or pipeline driving it has to supply. One bash tool and a short system prompt, with output over 10,000 characters cut to its first and last 5,000, but no compaction of a long history (22). Step, cost and wall-time limits, global call and cost limits by environment variable, and a 30-second timeout per command (18). The trajectory JSON records Submitted, LimitsExceeded, TimeExceeded or RepeatedFormatError, but stdout is human-readable only and these aren't process exit codes (12). Model calls retry ten times with exponential backoff, and the trajectory is saved after every step, but there's no resume and no undo (8). Python bindings only. An unattended mini run needs -y, --exit-immediately and MSWEA_CONFIGURED, the last found only in the source (9). No MCP client, ACP or server mode.
Sculptor 50
Harness reading. Workspaces as isolated copies, review and merge back, and built-in skills (50).
Schema & documentation mini-swe-agent +13
mini-swe-agent 58
Framework reading. Typed pydantic config classes, typed protocols for agents, models and environments, py.typed, a mkdocstrings API reference and a documented trajectory format, but no machine-readable spec for configs or output (15). No llms.txt (/latest/llms.txt and /llms.txt returned 404). The docs are Markdown in the repository, readable raw, though they rely on build-time includes (3). The FAQ and environments page say when to pick mini over SWE-agent and which environment isolates, but the FAQ still says it doesn't use tool calls while the v2 guide says tool calls are now the default (12). Modes are a typed Literal and limits are typed fields, while model_kwargs passes free-form to LiteLLM (10). Hello-world and cookbook examples, a model troubleshooting page and a partial list of exit statuses (11). A dated v2 migration guide and kept v1 docs, with release notes only on GitHub, which we couldn't read (7).
Sculptor 45
Harness reading. A README, specs and agent docs in the repository; no API reference (45).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | mini-swe-agent | Sculptor | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 65 | 43 | mini-swe-agent +22 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 58 | 45 | mini-swe-agent +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 69 | 50 | mini-swe-agent +19 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 58 | 57 | mini-swe-agent +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 32 | 75 | Sculptor +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 56 | 57 | Sculptor +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 59/100 | D 53.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | mini-swe-agent | Sculptor |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) | Imbue, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Sculptor
No score change since it was listed.
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 there has been no release since 2.4.6 on 23 July 2026.
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
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
Sculptor
- Download from the README's links, connect a repository and create a workspace before prompting
- Review the diff before merging a workspace back to main
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, mini-swe-agent or Sculptor?
mini-swe-agent scores 59 (C) on agent readiness against Sculptor's 53.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Sculptor leads on maintenance & community.
Are mini-swe-agent and Sculptor open source?
Yes. mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT). Sculptor is open source (MIT).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-sculptor.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.json·/api/v1/tools/sculptor.json - From a terminal
anchor compare mini-swe-agent sculptor(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "mini-swe-agent", "b": "sculptor"}at/mcp, no key