io.github.RyanAlberts/agent-harnesses

Side-by-side comparison of 2-4 harnesses by github_id — for "should I use X or Y?". Answers the head-to-head question with the list's curation intelligence instead of a raw spec dump: each project's record aligned on the list's axes, an edge summary naming which project leads on stars / adoption simplicity / autonomy / failure recovery, a warning when a requested id is in the graveyard (archived or integrity-flagged), and the decision guide covering this matchup when one exists. github_ids: 2-4 ids, e.g. ["openclaw/openclaw", "NousResearch/hermes-agent"] — use search_harnesses to find an id. Returns JSON: {projects, edges, warnings, see_also, source, stars_captured}. Edge values are lists of names (more than one = a tie); an axis is omitted when fewer than two of the compared projects are rated on it.

Pick the top harnesses for a use case or task and compare them side by side. One call for "compare the best options for X": candidates are ranked the same way pick_harness ranks them, the top 2-4 are compared head-to-head (per-axis edge lists incl. the researched deep-dive axes — sandboxing, context memory, lifecycle hooks, prompt optimization — plus each project's build-vs-buy tier), with each pick's ranking reason and the decision guide covering the matchup when one exists. use_case: the task, e.g. "sandboxed code execution for generated code". limit: how many top candidates to compare (2-4, default 3). Returns JSON: {use_case, projects, why_picked, edges, warnings, see_also, source}.

Full markdown of one decision guide by slug (see list_comparisons). Guides cover architecture trade-offs, field reports, and the post-June-2026 billing reality — use them when a user is choosing between specific harnesses, not just browsing.

Full record for one project by github_id (e.g. "anomalyco/opencode").

The list's 10 categories and 14 curated use-case intents, with project counts.

The list's head-to-head decision guides (e.g. "OpenClaw vs Hermes", "How to pick a harness") — slug, title, and summary for each. Fetch the full text of one with get_comparison(slug).

Recommend agent harnesses for a use case, ranked from a hand-curated list of 100+. use_case: what you want to do, e.g. "terminal coding agent", "drop-in memory layer", "evaluate agents on coding benchmarks". max_complexity: cap on adoption surface — one of "super simple", "mostly simple", "slightly complex", "complex" (default: no cap). min_autonomy: require at least this designed autonomy regime — one of "step-gated", "checkpoint-gated", "bounded", "headless" (e.g. "bounded" means "must be able to run a whole task unattended"; excludes n/a entries). min_recovery: require at least this failure-recovery tier — one of "none", "retry", "resumable", "durable" (excludes n/a entries). open_source_only: drop projects with restricted or unknown licenses. Returns JSON: ranked picks with a one-line reason each.

Pick agent infrastructure at any level of the stack: curated list first, live web discovery second, so the answer is never limited to the list. Where pick_harness ranks only the curated list, this tool adds a live discovery pass for capabilities newer than the list: a GitHub repository search (recently pushed, star-ranked, already-listed and graveyard repos removed) and a Hacker News search (recent stories, 20+ points). Live results are labeled "unvetted": they have NOT passed the list's curation bar, so treat them as leads to evaluate, not recommendations. need: plain language, e.g. "somewhere safe to run agent-written code", "trace and score my agent in production", "hosted browsers for a scraping agent", "stop tool schemas from eating my context window". level: optional stack level; inferred from the need when omitted. One of: model-access, harness, orchestration, sandboxing, browser, memory, context, tools, evals, observability, security, skills. include_live_search: set False for a fully offline, curated-only answer. Live search sends only the need text to api.github.com and hn.algolia.com; an optional GH_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN env var raises the GitHub rate limit. Returns JSON: {need, level, curated_picks, avoid, decision_guides, live_discovery, source, stars_captured}. Degrades gracefully: when live search is off or unreachable, curated results still return and live_discovery.status says why.

Opinionated single recommendation for a need — a decision, not a list. Where pick_harness returns a ranked shortlist, recommend commits: one top pick with the reason, up to two alternatives, any listed harnesses to AVOID for this need (archived, or flagged for star manipulation — with why), and the most relevant decision guide to read next. Use this when an agent or user asks "what should I actually use for X?". need: plain-language description of what you're building, e.g. "an always-on personal assistant in my chat apps" or "evaluate a coding agent on benchmarks". language: optional — restrict to a language/runtime tag (python, javascript, typescript, rust). must_run_unattended: require a harness designed to run a whole task with no human in the loop (autonomy bounded or headless). open_source_only: drop restricted or unknown-license projects. Returns JSON: {recommendation, alternatives, avoid, see_also, source}.

Keyword search across all 100+ projects (name, description, tags, category). Returns JSON: matching projects sorted by relevance then stars.