Head-to-head comparison of coding agents (Claude Code, Aider, Codex, etc.) on custom tasks with pass rate, cost, time, and consistency metrics
npx skills add https://github.com/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes --skill agent-eval
A lightweight CLI tool for comparing coding agents head-to-head on reproducible tasks. Every "which coding agent is best?" comparison runs on vibes — this tool systematizes it.
> Note: Install agent-eval from its repository after reviewing the source.
Define tasks declaratively. Each task specifies what to do, which files to touch, and how to judge success:
name: add-retry-logic
description: Add exponential backoff retry to the HTTP client
repo: ./my-project
files:
- src/http_client.py
prompt: |
Add retry logic with exponential backoff to all HTTP requests.
Max 3 retries. Initial delay 1s, max delay 30s.
judge:
- type: pytest
command: pytest tests/test_http_client.py -v
- type: grep
pattern: "exponential_backoff|retry"
files: src/http_client.py
commit: "abc1234" # pin to specific commit for reproducibility
Each agent run gets its own git worktree — no Docker required. This provides reproducibility isolation so agents cannot interfere with each other or corrupt the base repo.
| Metric | What It Measures |
|--------|-----------------|
| Pass rate | Did the agent produce code that passes the judge? |
| Cost | API spend per task (when available) |
| Time | Wall-clock seconds to completion |
| Consistency | Pass rate across repeated runs (e.g., 3/3 = 100%) |
Create a tasks/ directory with YAML files, one per task:
mkdir tasks
# Write task definitions (see template above)
Execute agents against your tasks:
agent-eval run --task tasks/add-retry-logic.yaml --agent claude-code --agent aider --runs 3
Each run:
Generate a comparison report:
agent-eval report --format table
Task: add-retry-logic (3 runs each)
┌──────────────┬───────────┬────────┬────────┬─────────────┐
│ Agent │ Pass Rate │ Cost │ Time │ Consistency │
├──────────────┼───────────┼────────┼────────┼─────────────┤
│ claude-code │ 3/3 │ $0.12 │ 45s │ 100% │
│ aider │ 2/3 │ $0.08 │ 38s │ 67% │
└──────────────┴───────────┴────────┴────────┴─────────────┘
judge:
- type: pytest
command: pytest tests/ -v
- type: command
command: npm run build
judge:
- type: grep
pattern: "class.*Retry"
files: src/**/*.py
judge:
- type: llm
prompt: |
Does this implementation correctly handle exponential backoff?
Check for: max retries, increasing delays, jitter.
Create new skills, modify and improve existing skills, and measure skill performance. Use when users want to create a skill from scratch, edit, or optimize an existing skill, run evals to test a skill, benchmark skill performance with variance analysis, or optimize a skill's description for better triggering accuracy.
Guide for creating effective skills. This skill should be used when users want to create a new skill (or update an existing skill) that extends Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations.
Guide for creating effective skills. This skill should be used when users want to create a new skill (or update an existing skill) that extends Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations.
Replace with description of the skill and when Claude should use it.
Use when facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies
This skill should be used when the user wants to "create a skill", "add a skill to plugin", "write a new skill", "improve skill description", "organize skill content", or needs guidance on skill structure, progressive disclosure, or skill development best practices for Claude Code plugins.
Helps users discover and install agent skills when they ask questions like "how do I do X", "find a skill for X", "is there a skill that can...", or express interest in extending capabilities. This skill should be used when the user is looking for functionality that might exist as an installable skill.
Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment
Take loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes-agent-eval from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.