Vol. V · The Harness · V.7
Coding Agent Harnesses
OpenHands, Cline, OpenCode, Aider, Gemini CLI, DeerFlow: the software-engineering specialization of the harness. Git is the ledger; the repo is the workspace; the PR is the done state.
7 min read
OpenHands/OpenHandscline/clineanomalyco/opencodeAider-AI/aidergoogle-gemini/gemini-clibytedance/deer-flow
Doctrine
- Diffs, not whole-file dumps, as the edit tool. Aider proved this.
- A repo map or code graph beats grep-only on large trees.
- Done means a reviewable PR, tests run, and a human gate — not 'the model said it finished'.
What to copy
Aider: repo map, edit formats, conventional commits. Cline: plan/act and approval. OpenHands: isolated computer and event stream. Gemini CLI / OpenCode: MCP-native plugins. DeerFlow: research plus code plus publish as one long-horizon system.
MetaGPT simulated a company. These harnesses hired one engineer with a very good desk. For most products, hire the engineer.
Anti-patterns
- Letting the agent force-push to main.
- No test command in the harness.