My running notes on AI tools for developers — what exists, how I bucket it, and a short reminder of what each product does. Kept here so I don’t have to reconstruct it from memory.
How I see it
Harnesses = the loops that edit files / run shells / ship PRs (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenClaw…).
Models = the brains (Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi…). Same model shows up in lots of tools.
Glue = routers and SDKs (OpenRouter, LiteLLM, AI SDK) — access or build with models, not agents themselves.
MCP = how harnesses talk to tools and services (files, browsers, design systems, APIs) — protocol glue, not a product.
Names collide a lot: Claude ≠ Claude Code ≠ Claude Design; Codex is CLI + cloud; Kimi is model + CLI.