# DeepSeek Harness vs SOAT: Feature Comparison

> DeepSeek Harness and SOAT compared on 15 agent capabilities, 4 vs 12 native, each rating linked to its source.

# SOAT vs DeepSeek Harness

DeepSeek Harness is an agent framework (MIT, self-hosted). SOAT is agent infrastructure (Apache-2.0, self-hosted). Of the 15 capabilities the [benchmark](/benchmark) tracks, DeepSeek Harness covers 4 natively and SOAT 12.

## At a glance

| | DeepSeek Harness | SOAT |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Type | an agent framework | agent infrastructure |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Deployment | self-hosted | self-hosted |
| Native capabilities | 4 of 15 | 12 of 15 |
| Last verified | 2026-08-18 | 2026-08-14 |

## Where each one leads

- **DeepSeek Harness** is native where SOAT is not: code execution.
- **SOAT** is native where DeepSeek Harness is not: orchestration, knowledge & memory, identity & governance, observability, data & secrets, evaluation, multi-tenancy, declarative deployment, versioning & rollout.

## What DeepSeek Harness is

Plugin-based open-source agent framework from DeepSeek AI ("everything is a plugin") built on the Cordis composable plugin system, with a web UI and CLI for building and running custom agents. [DeepSeek Harness documentation](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness).

## Capability by capability

### Agent runtime

_Agent loop, sessions, and generation lifecycle._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Native.** Core agent loop and web UI for agent interaction. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness))
- **SOAT: Native.** Agents, sessions, chats, and generations with full lifecycle tracking. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/agents))

### Orchestration

_Multi-step pipelines, workflows, and triggers._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Partial.** A built-in workflow family runs model-authored dynamic workflows over subagents, plus plan/schedule/goal packages; no declarative DAG with explicit steps, dependencies, or conditions. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness/blob/master/packages/workflow/README.md))
- **SOAT: Native.** DAG orchestrations, workflow state machines, durable tasks, and triggers (manual, webhook, schedule). ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/orchestrations))

### Knowledge & memory

_Documents, embeddings, semantic search, and recall._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Via plugin.** No built-in document store, embeddings, or memory — provided by plugins. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness))
- **SOAT: Native.** Documents with per-chunk embeddings, named memories, unified semantic search, and ingestion rules for PDFs, images, and audio. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/knowledge))

### Tools & integration

_Tool calling, MCP, providers, and webhooks._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Native.** The plugin system is the tool/extension surface; capabilities are added as Cordis plugins. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness))
- **SOAT: Native.** HTTP, MCP, client, and agent-to-agent tools; model routes with failover; webhooks; any LLM provider. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/tools))

### Identity & governance

_IAM, guardrails, approvals, quotas, and audit._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Absent.** No multi-tenant IAM, policies, quotas, approvals, or audit log.
- **SOAT: Native.** AWS-inspired IAM, actors, scoped API keys, guardrails, human approvals, quotas, and an append-only audit log. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/iam))

### Observability

_Traces, activity, usage, and failure queues._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Partial.** Runtime diagnostics, a per-session audit trail, and durable JSONL/SQLite session persistence with a query layer; no structured trace/usage metering model. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness))
- **SOAT: Native.** Traces of every tool call and model response, activity feed, usage/cost tracking, and an exceptions queue. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/traces))

### Data & secrets

_File storage and encrypted secrets._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Partial.** Credential references resolved from env/local files (config carries references, not values) plus session storage and attachments; no managed encrypted secrets store or API-managed file storage. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness/blob/master/packages/credentials/README.md))
- **SOAT: Native.** File storage over local/S3/GCS backends and encrypted secrets storage. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/files))

### Evaluation

_Datasets, scorers, and eval-gated improvement._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Absent.** No built-in datasets, scorers, or eval runs.
- **SOAT: Native.** Datasets, scorers, and scored runs; eval-gated promotion of agent versions. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/evaluations))

### Channels

_Built-in gateways to messaging platforms and UIs._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Via plugin.** Web UI is built in; messaging-platform gateways arrive as Cordis plugins. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness))
- **SOAT: Absent.** Surfaces are REST, MCP, CLI, and SDK — no built-in gateways to messaging platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, or Telegram.

### Code execution

_Sandboxed code or terminal runtimes for agents._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Native.** First-party per-session process confinement (bwrap/Landlock/Seatbelt backends) and a code-execution family running in worker threads, with an E2B integration; worker threads are not a security boundary. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness/blob/master/packages/sandbox/README.md))
- **SOAT: Absent.** Tool types are HTTP, MCP, client, and agent-to-agent — no built-in sandboxed code or terminal runtime.

### Human-in-the-loop

_Pausing a run for human approval, then resuming it._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Native.** An approval package supplies a fail-closed approval service that gates each tool call under a per-session ask or never policy, plus a seam for free-form questions to the user. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness/blob/master/docs/subsystems/approval.md))
- **SOAT: Native.** Approvals are a first-class human-decision queue with frozen evidence, and guardrails classify each tool call so risky actions pause for a decision. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/approvals))

### Multi-tenancy

_Projects or workspaces scoping resources and permissions._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Absent.** Workspaces are local user directories holding session membership, and the identity package states its values do not represent an authenticated account, so no tenant-scoped permission model exists.
- **SOAT: Native.** Projects are multi-tenant namespaces scoping every resource, with IAM policies and quotas enforced per project. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/projects))

### Declarative deployment

_Templates that provision agent resources as one stack._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Partial.** An agent preset declaratively composes a session's tools, persona, and prompt sections, but it is per-session composition with no plan/apply, dependency graph, or resource provisioning. ([source](https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness/blob/master/packages/preset/README.md))
- **SOAT: Native.** Formations provision providers, memories, tools, agents, orchestrations, and webhooks from one template, resolving refs into a dependency graph with tracked operations. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/modules/formations))

### Versioning & rollout

_Agent versions, canary rollout, gated promotion._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Absent.** No versioned agent definitions, aliases, canary rollout, or rollback appear in the packages or subsystem documentation.
- **SOAT: Native.** Every config change is archived as an append-only agent version, with canary rollout to a slice of traffic and eval-gated promotion. ([source](https://soat.ttoss.dev/docs/tutorials/agent-versioning-and-canary-rollout))

### Skill learning

_Agents authoring reusable skills from their own experience._

- **DeepSeek Harness: Absent.** The skill family only discovers pre-authored skills through filesystem providers and exposes a read-only catalog and loader; there is no write path for the agent to author a skill.
- **SOAT: Absent.** Memories and knowledge store retrievable context, but agents do not author or refine reusable skills from their own experience.

## How this is rated

Each rating comes from the public documentation linked beside it: **Native** is built in, **Via plugin** needs an add-on, **Partial** covers part of the capability, **Absent** is not offered. Every solution side by side is on the [benchmark](/benchmark). A rating that is out of date is a bug: [open an issue](https://github.com/ttoss/soat/issues).