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.
| Harness | MCP | Agent Skills | AGENTS.md | ACP | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CodexOpenAI | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Apache-2.0 |
| CursorAnysphere | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Proprietary |
| Factory DroidFactory | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Proprietary |
| Gemini CLIGoogle | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Apache-2.0 |
| GitHub CopilotGitHub / Microsoft | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Proprietary |
| gooseBlock, now at the Agentic AI Foundation | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Apache-2.0 |
| JunieJetBrains | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | Proprietary |
| OpenCodeAnomaly (SST) | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | MIT |
| AmpAmp | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ?ACP: not yet verified | Proprietary |
| Claude CodeAnthropic | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Proprietary |
| KiroAWS | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Proprietary |
| OpenHandsAll Hands AI | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | MIT |
| Roo CodeRoo Code | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | AGENTS.md: supported | ?ACP: not yet verified | Apache-2.0 |
| ZedZed Industries | MCP: supported | ?Agent Skills: not yet verified | AGENTS.md: supported | ACP: supported | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| ClineCline | MCP: supported | ?Agent Skills: not yet verified | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Apache-2.0 |
| Hermes AgentNous Research | ?MCP: not yet verified | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Open source |
| LettaLetta | MCP: supported | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ?ACP: not yet verified | Open source |
| Mistral VibeMistral AI | ?MCP: not yet verified | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Open source |
| OpenClawOpenClaw community | ?MCP: not yet verified | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Open source |
| piMario Zechner | ?MCP: not yet verified | Agent Skills: supported | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Open source |
| Qwen CodeAlibaba Qwen | MCP: supported | ?Agent Skills: not yet verified | ?AGENTS.md: not yet verified | ACP: supported | Apache-2.0 |
| AiderAider | ?MCP: not yet verified | ?Agent Skills: not yet verified | AGENTS.md: supported | ?ACP: not yet verified | Apache-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
ProprietaryAnthropic · 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 sourceOpenAI · 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 sourceGoogle · Terminal
Google's open-source terminal agent for Gemini models, with MCP servers, extensions, Skills and AGENTS.md support.
OpenCode
Open sourceAnomaly (SST) · Terminal, IDE, Desktop
Provider-agnostic open-source coding agent for terminal, IDE and desktop. Works with 75+ model providers, including local models.
Cursor
ProprietaryAnysphere · 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
ProprietaryGitHub / 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 sourceBlock, 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 sourceAll 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
ProprietaryAmp · Terminal, IDE
Frontier coding agent for terminal and editor. Co-created the AGENTS.md convention and supports Agent Skills.
Factory Droid
ProprietaryFactory · Terminal, IDE, CI/CD
Delegates whole tasks (refactors, migrations, incident response) to Droids from IDE, CLI or CI/CD.
Junie
ProprietaryJetBrains · IDE, CLI
LLM-agnostic coding agent built on the IntelliJ Platform, so it reads the project the way the IDE does.
Kiro
ProprietaryAWS · IDE, CLI
Spec-driven agentic IDE and CLI: turns prompts into requirements, designs and tasks before writing code.
Zed
Open sourceZed 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 sourceCline · IDE, CLI
Open-source autonomous coding agent for VS Code and JetBrains with a plan/act workflow and an MCP marketplace.
Roo Code
Open sourceRoo Code · IDE
Open-source multi-mode coding agent for VS Code with custom modes, MCP, Skills and AGENTS.md.
Qwen Code
Open sourceAlibaba Qwen · Terminal
Terminal agent tuned for Qwen coder models that also runs OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and local Ollama or vLLM backends.
Mistral Vibe
Open sourceMistral AI · Terminal
Mistral's command-line coding assistant with Agent Skills and ACP support.
pi
Open sourceMario Zechner · Terminal
Minimal, hackable terminal coding harness meant to be adapted to your workflow.
Aider
Open sourceAider · Terminal
Long-running open-source pair-programming CLI with git-native edits and broad model support.
Personal agents
Hermes Agent
Open sourceNous Research · Terminal, Desktop, Messaging
Model-agnostic personal agent across CLI, desktop and messaging apps. Learns across sessions and writes reusable skills from its own work.
OpenClaw
Open sourceOpenClaw community · Local, Messaging
Open-source personal assistant that runs locally and lives in the messaging apps you already use, with cron jobs, plugins and approvals.