Compare Harnesses

The four harnesses that come with Link, side by side. Every one takes a hosted model from Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenRouter with your key, and speaks Telegram, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp and Signal. The table is where they differ, and Link Bench measures them side by side on your own machine.

lnk agent use openclaw    # switch to one, installing it the first time

Where they differ

Link HarnessOpenClawHermes AgentDeepSeek Harness
Made byLocal LinkThe OpenClaw projectNous ResearchDeepSeek
Switch to itlnk agent use linklnk agent use openclawlnk agent use hermeslnk agent use deepseek
InstallIn a second, nothing from a third partyIts release, with its own NodeIts release, with its own Python and Nodedsh and Node, about 800 MB
Local modelsAny runtimeOllama only, 32k contextAny runtime, 64k contextAny runtime
ChannelsAll five, carried by LinkAll five, its ownAll five, its ownAll five, carried by Link
Asks for more than Link's defaultsNeverlan with Slack or Discord; no sandbox with OpenAI on a Macwhatsapp-bridge with WhatsApp on a MacNever
Its memoryPlain files in your files folderIts workspace: SOUL.md, memory/Its own, in its homeA dsh session per chat
Link Scheduler: subagents and schedulesYesNoNo; its own scheduled jobsNo
Its own sitelocal.linkopenclaw.ainousresearch.comGitHub

Pick one

Your agent runs Link Harness unless you pick another.

  • Link Harness to start. It's small and readable, installs in a second, asks for nothing beyond Link's defaults, and keeps each conversation as files you can read. It's the one harness that starts subagents and schedules messages to itself.
  • OpenClaw for OpenClaw's personal assistant, with its own personality files and commands you send from your phone, such as /restart. It runs local models only through Ollama, and with Slack or Discord it asks for lan.
  • Hermes Agent for Nous Research's agent, with a model in Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, vLLM or Jan. Its hermes claw migrate brings over OpenClaw's memory and skills.
  • DeepSeek Harness for DeepSeek's open-source agent, with DeepSeek's models on OpenRouter or any other. Link turns off everything it would send DeepSeek, its web search among them.

Switch Harnesses says what comes along when you switch, and Harnesses what Link does for every one.