openharness: Manage Coding Agents Across Machines

Overview

OpenHarness is a desktop app and CLI for managing coding-agent sessions across multiple machines. It keeps agents in real tmux terminals, organizes sessions into tabs, and lets you connect machines without manually setting up SSH keys or port forwarding. Its encrypted transport can use direct WebRTC, TURN or a relay.

The project also treats a harness as a way to equip agents for specific disciplines. Its Store includes workflows and viewers for areas such as CAD, electronics, robotics, games and music. This makes it relevant to developers who want one workspace for multiple agents, and to makers who want agents to work with domain-specific tools.

Key Features

• Run different agent CLIs side by side in separate tmux sessions, without wrapping the agents.
• Manage sessions on a laptop, home server or other linked machine from one app or terminal UI.
• Start agents in separate worktrees to keep the main working copy clean.
• Use end-to-end encrypted remote connections, with direct WebRTC and fallback routes.
• Navigate and split sessions with remappable keyboard shortcuts.
• Install or author domain-specific harnesses that combine instructions, tools, templates, checks and optional viewers.
• Connect the optional open-hardware device over USB to see agent status and respond to prompts.

Use Cases

• A developer switching between Claude Code, Codex or other supported agent CLIs can keep their sessions organized in one workspace.
• A team member with a laptop and a home or cloud machine can start agents remotely without exposing an inbound machine port.
• A maker working on a circuit, CAD model or robot simulation can use a domain-specific harness and its viewer to give an agent tools suited to that craft.
• A terminal-focused user can manage harnesses across machines with the hn interface instead of relying on the desktop app.

Getting Started

Download the macOS or Linux app from the project site. To add a machine, install the CLI and start its daemon:

curl -fsSL https://harness.autonomous.ai/cli/install.sh | bash
harness login
harness remote-password set
harness start

Then link the machine in the app. See the README for terminal use, source builds and configuration details.

Alternatives

• vicoa: Vicoa adds task management and review tools across desktop, web, mobile, and CLI, while OpenHarness centers on tmux sessions and optional craft-specific harnesses.
• orca: Orca focuses on coordinating and reviewing agents in isolated Git worktrees; OpenHarness centers on tmux sessions and encrypted local or remote connections.
• claude-code-by-agents: Claude Code by Agents organizes work in threaded rooms with @mentions, while OpenHarness uses tmux sessions and supports craft-specific harnesses.
• synara: Synara brings project files, previews, and Git review into a local workspace; OpenHarness emphasizes tmux and encrypted connections to remote machines.

Considerations

OpenHarness is new and changing quickly. Repository activity and releases are recent, with contributions from many people and no strong dependence on a single contributor, but the project's short history means its long-term stability is not yet established. The supplied health data does not provide a useful issue-resolution time, so it is difficult to assess how quickly reported problems are closed.

The desktop app is available for macOS and Linux. Building from source requires Node.js, tmux, Xcode and Flutter/Dart; the README's source-build instructions therefore include platform-specific setup. Remote access also depends on the project's daemon and connection paths, so teams should review its architecture and security information before relying on it for sensitive work. The repository is MIT-licensed, while bundled upstream tools retain their own licenses.