Alibaba Qoder Open-Sources Better Harness: An Open-Source Analysis and Continuous Improvement Tool for Programming Agent Workflows from Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud open-sourced Better Harness, a framework for evaluating coding agent workflows.

The tool combines harness engineering and loop engineering with a three-layer model: practices, evaluation questions, and runnable implementations.

It checks not only whether a capability exists, but whether agents actually use it effectively in real workflows.

Better Harness was first applied to 30 GitHub projects and works with agents including Claude Code, Codex, Qoder, and OpenClaw.

The goal is to give teams a shared, evidence-based way to compare and improve coding agents.