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

**Published:** October 24, 2026
**Author:** Jonathan Kemper
**Source:** The Decoder
**Language:** en-US
**HTML:** https://aiqazaqstan.com/en/articles/fancy-harnesses-make-coding-agents-more-expensive-but-not-better-study-f

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…

> From the original source: **The Decoder**
> [Read full article at The Decoder](https://the-decoder.com/fancy-harnesses-make-coding-agents-more-expensive-but-not-better-study-finds/)

**Tags:** #Anthropic

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