Framework
Compare coding agents by failure mode, not demo quality
Vendor demos show a green test suite. Real work fails on hidden state, private packages, flaky CI, and ambiguous tickets. Use the same scorecard on every tool so marketing copy does not pick the winner.
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Can it refuse when context is missing? | Agents that invent file paths ship bugs that look complete. |
| Does it keep secrets out of logs and prompts? | Copied .env files are a common incident, not an edge case. |
| Can you cap write access to one directory? | Unscoped tools rewrite unrelated modules. |
| Is the test command the agent's, or yours? | If the agent defines “done,” it will optimize for that definition. |
| What is retained by the vendor? | Code, tickets, and customer data may be logged. Read the vendor terms yourself. |
Product names change quickly. We intentionally omit live score tables so this page does not become outdated marketing. Re-run the questions on the current version of any tool you evaluate.
No affiliation. Mentions of IDEs, models, or CLI agents are for identification only. Those parties have not reviewed or approved this page. Features, pricing, and data practices must be verified on the vendor’s own site.