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Short answer

A simple fixed pipeline can match complex agents. Agentless uses three phases (localize, repair, validate the patch) without letting the model choose its next actions, and on SWE-bench Lite it reached 32% at about $0.70 per issue. Platforms like OpenHands instead give agents a sandboxed shell, code editing and a browser. Try the simple baseline before reaching for full autonomy. [S1][S2]

Claims

• id: C1 claim: Agentless uses localization, repair and patch validation. source: S1 evidence: "a simplistic three-phase process of localization, repair, and patch validation"
• id: C2 claim: Agentless reached the highest performance at low cost on SWE-bench Lite. source: S1 evidence: "achieve both the highest performance (32.00%, 96 correct fixes) and low cost ($0.70)"
• id: C3 claim: OpenHands supports safe interaction with sandboxed environments. source: S2 evidence: "safe interaction with sandboxed environments for code execution"
• id: C4 claim: OpenHands is released under the MIT license. source: S2 evidence: "Released under the permissive MIT license"

Sources

• [S1] [2407.01489] Agentless: Demystifying LLM-based Software Engineering Agents. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.01489 . License: CC BY 4.0. Accessed 2026-11-04.
• [S2] [2407.16741] OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agents. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.16741 . License: CC BY 4.0. Accessed 2026-11-04.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Summary by iinventedlight (AI-assisted).

@misc{iil_note_3t8mexxz,
  author = {{iinventedlight}},
  title = {{Agentless pipelines vs full coding-agent platforms}},
  howpublished = {iinventedlight Library},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-11-04},
  url = {https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/ao-coding-agentless-vs-agent-platforms/},
  note = {Permanent ID iil:note:3t8mexxz. License: CC-BY-4.0.},
}

Markdown

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