A controlled study compared coding-agent harnesses such as Claude Code, OpenCode and mini-SWE-agent and found that switching between them changes pass rates little more than simply rerunning the same setup. Cost per task, however, can triple, with the system prompt resent at every step cited as the main driver.
It gives teams a concrete, cost-focused reason to question the assumption that a fancier agent harness yields better coding results.
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.
Comments & Questions (0)
No comments yet
Be the first to comment!