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[ARTICLE · art-156688] src=the-decoder.com ↗ pub= topic=ai-agents verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Fancy harnesses make coding agents more expensive but not better, study finds

A controlled study found that switching coding-agent harnesses such as Claude Code, OpenCode, and mini-SWE-agent changes pass rates by little more than rerunning the same setup, while cost per task can triple, driven mainly by the system prompt resent with every step. The finding, reported by The Decoder, indicates harness choice has limited effect on agent accuracy but a large effect on expense.

by read1 min views2 publishedOct 24, 2026

A controlled study shows that switching between coding-agent harnesses like Claude Code, OpenCode, or mini-SWE-agent barely moves pass rates more than rerunning the same setup. Cost per task, however, can triple, driven mainly by the system prompt that gets resent with every step.

The article Fancy harnesses make coding agents more expensive but not better, study finds appeared first on The Decoder.

source & further reading
the-decoder.com — original article Chinese AI model Kimi K3.1 Pro is closing in on Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 Three-week on-site audit at OpenAI reveals major gaps in AI safety monitoring Anthropic says its unreleased model is both more capable and better aligned than Mythos 5.1
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