Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Paseo vs Mirror CLI

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Mirror CLI's 57.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Mirror CLI leads on schema & documentation. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Paseo B

Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 50 against 40
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 58
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 47

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

Pre-1.0, at 0.15.3

Mirror CLI C

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, 75 against 65

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Version 0.1.x, labelled early beta, with an undated changelog and no CLI release tags

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 Paseo +28

Paseo 75

v0.15.3 and commits on 7 November 2026 (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 (0). Current builds (15). CI on push (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.

Mirror CLI 47

0.1.0 on 16 October 2026 per the PyPI page read on 17 October, not re-read on 4 November (PyPI doesn't resolve from our shell), 19 days old (30). The 90-day line needs three dated releases. 0.1.0 (16 October) and the mirror-agent-v0.1.8 tag on the same commit, f938033, are one release day, and 0.1.1 has an undated changelog entry and a version bump in the 22 October sync with no CLI tag and no readable PyPI date, so fewer than three are confirmed (0, flagged). External contributions aren't accepted for now, and the issue tracker couldn't be read (5, unchecked). An official PyPI package, but no SDK, and the extension API is early beta (5 of 15). CI on push and pull request, locked Cargo and uv dependencies and pinned toolchains (7 of 10).

Agent ergonomics Paseo +12

Paseo 70

Harness reading. A self-hosted daemon that agents can use to create worktrees, launch other agents and talk to them, scriptable from the CLI (70).

Mirror CLI 58

Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. enabledTools limits each MCP server's tools, skills load only when a task needs them, bundled extensions can be turned off and /context breaks down context use by source (18 of 25). --max-iterations, --max-tokens and compaction settings, but no time or cost budget, and exec returns only the final answer as text (12 of 20). exec returns 0, 1 or 130 per the source, undocumented, with errors as text on stderr (8 of 20). Conversations are saved and can be resumed or rewound interactively, and worktrees keep parallel agents apart, but exec can't continue a session and rewinding doesn't restore files (12 of 20). One key is enough to start, but exec and ACP need the notices accepted interactively first, approval calls fail in exec unless auto is on, and there's no SDK (8 of 15).

Reliability Paseo +10

Paseo 50

Local software. Desktop builds, an Android APK, a Docker image and a Nix package (20). ci.yml 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). CHANGELOG.md (15). Version 0.15.3 (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 50.

Mirror CLI 40

Local-package reading. An official PyPI package, reflection-mirror, with wheels for macOS arm64 and manylinux x86-64 and aarch64, and supported platforms stated in the README (macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon, Linux with glibc 2.28 or later, Python 3.12 or later) (20). A public CI workflow runs the Python package tests (ci.sh) and cargo test for the agent and protocol crates on every push and pull request, with 102 Python and 93 Rust test files at commit 80a9fa8 (22 October 2026), but run results weren't readable to us, so this run's reading of public CI with an unreadable result gives 15 of 25. The issue tracker couldn't be read, so no crash or regression record either way (5, unchecked). A CHANGELOG.md now lists 0.1.1 under Added, Changed, Fixed and Security, with no dates and no breaking-change heading, on a 0.x version (0, flagged). 0.1.x, labelled early beta in the docs (0).

Schema & documentation Mirror CLI +10

Paseo 65

Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).

Mirror CLI 75

Framework reading. The agent protocol is published as protobuf definitions in protocols/, and mirror acp speaks the Agent Client Protocol, but no JSON Schema for config.json or the MCP definition files was found (15 of 25). llms.txt with a Markdown copy of every page (10). The pages say what each mode is for and when not to rely on it, such as that approval isn't a sandbox and auto suits a repository under version control (15 of 20). Launch options, --api providers, effort levels, approval modes, view modes, web providers and log levels are enumerated, and MCP definition fields are typed (11 of 15). Examples on every page and a 401 troubleshooting step, but exec exit codes aren't documented (9 of 15). Versions with a stated tag scheme (reflection-mirror-vX.Y.Z for the CLI, mirror-agent-vX.Y.Z for the agent) and a public CHANGELOG.md in the repository since 22 October 2026 (15).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runPaseoMirror CLIEdge
Reliability16%205040Paseo +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26575Mirror CLI +10
Agent ergonomics13%16.27058Paseo +12
Security & auth14%17.55858even
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87547Paseo +28
Transparency & trust7%8.86866Paseo +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 62.1/100C 57.2/100

Facts side by side

FactPaseoMirror CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorMohamed BoudraReflection
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-11-072026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-10-05
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-08-28
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetyes
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Paseo

A self-hosted, open-source workspace for running many coding agents on your own machines, scriptable from the CLI and reachable from phone, web or desktop, with no telemetry or forced log-in. It's pre-1.0 and run largely by one maintainer.

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 0.1.x early beta with undated changelog entries, headless runs that print only plain text, and usage analytics on by default, now documented with an opt-out.

Before you call either

Paseo

  1. Run the daemon on the machine that has your tools and credentials, and connect from the clients
  2. Script runs from the CLI for repeatable agent jobs

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
  6. Run /web-provider after upgrading if you used Firecrawl. You.com is now the default, and a key alone doesn't select its provider

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Paseo or Mirror CLI?

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Mirror CLI's 57.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Mirror CLI leads on schema & documentation.

Are Paseo and Mirror CLI open source?

Yes. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0). Mirror CLI is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Paseo or Mirror CLI

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