Harnesses

Which agent supports which standard

A harness is the runtime around the model: the loop, tools, permissions and extension points. Pick one that speaks the standards you invest in, so your MCP servers, skills and repo instructions keep working when you switch.

Reviewed Oct 5, 2026. A tick means the vendor or the standard's own list says it is supported. A question mark means we have not verified it yet, not that it is missing.

HarnessMCPAgent SkillsAGENTS.mdACPLicense
CodexOpenAIMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedApache-2.0
CursorAnysphereMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedProprietary
Factory DroidFactoryMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedProprietary
Gemini CLIGoogleMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedApache-2.0
GitHub CopilotGitHub / MicrosoftMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedProprietary
gooseBlock, now at the Agentic AI FoundationMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedApache-2.0
JunieJetBrainsMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedProprietary
OpenCodeAnomaly (SST)MCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedMIT
AmpAmpMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supported?ACP: not yet verifiedProprietary
Claude CodeAnthropicMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedProprietary
KiroAWSMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedProprietary
OpenHandsAll Hands AIMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedMIT
Roo CodeRoo CodeMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supportedAGENTS.md: supported?ACP: not yet verifiedApache-2.0
ZedZed IndustriesMCP: supported?Agent Skills: not yet verifiedAGENTS.md: supportedACP: supportedGPL-3.0-or-later
ClineClineMCP: supported?Agent Skills: not yet verified?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedApache-2.0
Hermes AgentNous Research?MCP: not yet verifiedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedOpen source
LettaLettaMCP: supportedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verified?ACP: not yet verifiedOpen source
Mistral VibeMistral AI?MCP: not yet verifiedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedOpen source
OpenClawOpenClaw community?MCP: not yet verifiedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedOpen source
piMario Zechner?MCP: not yet verifiedAgent Skills: supported?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedOpen source
Qwen CodeAlibaba QwenMCP: supported?Agent Skills: not yet verified?AGENTS.md: not yet verifiedACP: supportedApache-2.0
AiderAider?MCP: not yet verified?Agent Skills: not yet verifiedAGENTS.md: supported?ACP: not yet verifiedApache-2.0

Sources: Agent Skills support from agentskills.io, AGENTS.md support from agents.md, ACP support from agentclientprotocol.com, MCP support from each vendor's documentation.

Coding agents

Claude Code

Proprietary

Anthropic · Terminal, IDE, Desktop, Web

Anthropic's agentic coding tool. Reads the codebase, edits files, runs commands, and extends through MCP servers, Skills, subagents, hooks and plugin marketplaces. Project instructions live in CLAUDE.md.

Codex

Open source

OpenAI · Terminal, IDE, Desktop, Web

OpenAI's coding agent across CLI, IDE, ChatGPT and cloud. One of the originators of AGENTS.md, with Skills, MCP and a plugin marketplace.

Gemini CLI

Open source

Google · Terminal

Google's open-source terminal agent for Gemini models, with MCP servers, extensions, Skills and AGENTS.md support.

OpenCode

Open source

Anomaly (SST) · Terminal, IDE, Desktop

Provider-agnostic open-source coding agent for terminal, IDE and desktop. Works with 75+ model providers, including local models.

Cursor

Proprietary

Anysphere · IDE, CLI, Web

AI editor and coding agent. Supports MCP, Agent Skills, AGENTS.md, and runs as both an ACP agent and client.

GitHub Copilot

Proprietary

GitHub / Microsoft · IDE, GitHub, CLI

Copilot's coding agent and VS Code agent mode. Agent Skills, AGENTS.md and MCP are supported; ACP support is in public preview.

goose

Open source

Block, now at the Agentic AI Foundation · Desktop, Terminal, API

Open-source, extensible agent with desktop app, CLI and API. Its extensions are MCP servers. A founding project of the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation.

OpenHands

Open source

All Hands AI · Web, Terminal, Cloud

Open platform for cloud coding agents. Self-hostable, model-agnostic, runs one to thousands of agents with optional Docker sandboxing.

Amp

Proprietary

Amp · Terminal, IDE

Frontier coding agent for terminal and editor. Co-created the AGENTS.md convention and supports Agent Skills.

Factory Droid

Proprietary

Factory · Terminal, IDE, CI/CD

Delegates whole tasks (refactors, migrations, incident response) to Droids from IDE, CLI or CI/CD.

Junie

Proprietary

JetBrains · IDE, CLI

LLM-agnostic coding agent built on the IntelliJ Platform, so it reads the project the way the IDE does.

Kiro

Proprietary

AWS · IDE, CLI

Spec-driven agentic IDE and CLI: turns prompts into requirements, designs and tasks before writing code.

Zed

Open source

Zed Industries · Editor

Rust editor with a native agent panel. Created the Agent Client Protocol, so it can drive Claude, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and other ACP agents.

Cline

Open source

Cline · IDE, CLI

Open-source autonomous coding agent for VS Code and JetBrains with a plan/act workflow and an MCP marketplace.

Roo Code

Open source

Roo Code · IDE

Open-source multi-mode coding agent for VS Code with custom modes, MCP, Skills and AGENTS.md.

Qwen Code

Open source

Alibaba Qwen · Terminal

Terminal agent tuned for Qwen coder models that also runs OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and local Ollama or vLLM backends.

Mistral Vibe

Open source

Mistral AI · Terminal

Mistral's command-line coding assistant with Agent Skills and ACP support.

pi

Open source

Mario Zechner · Terminal

Minimal, hackable terminal coding harness meant to be adapted to your workflow.

Aider

Open source

Aider · Terminal

Long-running open-source pair-programming CLI with git-native edits and broad model support.

Personal agents

Agent platforms