# mini-swe-agent

9 Hacker News commenters recommended mini-swe-agent and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Minimal coding agent running an LLM in a loop with only terminal access; praised for simplicity. Critics note it now exceeds its original 100 lines.

## Why people recommend it

- Minimal, started at 100 lines (4 comments): "a 100 LoC "LLM in a loop with just terminal access", it is now above last year's heavily harnessed SotA." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46358543)) "A 100 loc "harness" that is basically a llm in a loop with just a "bash" tool is way better today" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46623504)) "probably the most minimal agent out there (it started as just 100 lines, all included)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49755993))
- Strong results against heavier harnesses (2 comments): "a 100 LoC "LLM in a loop with just terminal access", it is now above last year's heavily harnessed SotA." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46358543)) "started to get close to the engineered agents this year" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118797))
- Adopted by academic and industry labs (2 comments): "now pretty popular in both academic and industry labs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546553)) "normalizing the harness to mini-swe-agent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48288204))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [GitHub Copilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-copilot.md): 571 recommend
- [oh-my-pi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oh-my-pi.md): 104 recommend
- [Grok Build CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok-build.md): 66 recommend
- [DeepSeek Harness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-harness.md): 63 recommend
- [Claude Code VS Code extension](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code-vs-code-extension.md): 31 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "mini-swe-agent", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mini-swe-agent/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).