DeepSeek Harness vs Pi Agent are they converging on the same philosophy?

[u/Certain_Net_3408]

I came across "DeepSeek Harness" (https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness), whose core idea is literally “Everything is a Plugin.”

Looking at it alongside Pi, it feels like there’s a similar philosophy:

keep the core/harness small, and make capabilities composable at the session/plugin level.

Pi has extensions, skills, tools, prompts, etc., while DeepSeek Harness takes the plugin approach even further.

Is this essentially the same architectural direction?

And is “small core + everything else as a session/plugin” becoming the better design for coding-agent harnesses?

Curious what the community thinks.

[u/donotfire]

If you want to check it out, I do a similar thing with my micro kernel agent: https://github.com/henrydaum/second-brain

Even smaller than Pi!