HumanLayer alternative

Looking for a HumanLayer alternative because an agent needs a person? This page is what each product publishes, including gotoHuman, the other one that documents a human-review MCP server.

Updated October 25, 2026

Every claim below is from the page it names, as of 17 October 2026. Nothing here is a score, a usage count, or a timing.

Comparison

HumanLayer, from their own pages

As of 17 October 2026, humanlayer.com is a coding workspace. The visible headline is “The Multiplayer Coding Agent Workspace.” The document title is “HumanLayer - The multiplayer control plane for your software factory.” The meta description reads: “A multiplayer coding agent IDE and cloud that brings agent sessions, plan artifacts, and code diffs together in one place for your team to collaborate and ship.”

The page describes tasks that group sessions and artifacts, a local daemon, cloud daemons, and the same UI on web, desktop, or phone. A FAQ says you bring your own Claude, Codex, and other subscriptions or API keys. Another FAQ names Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, and Fireworks as supported agents. Another says the product is not open source yet, and that their Research, Plan, Implement framework already is. The page says HumanLayer is SOC 2 Type II compliant.

That is a place to run coding agents with your team. It is not, on that page, a URL you paste into Cursor so an existing agent can ask you a question.

What their README says about the old code

The repository README is short. Fetched on 17 October 2026, the body is:

public issues repo for humanlayer - the code here is pretty much all deprecated - you can try the rebuild of humanlayer at https://humanlayer.com - thanks for all your support - dex

The quote is about the code in that repository, as fetched on 17 October 2026. This page does not say the product on humanlayer.com shut down. On 24 October 2026 the same README describes the current coding workspace and no longer contains that sentence.

As fetched on 17 Oct 2026, hlyr/README.md in that tree documented npx humanlayer contact_human, HUMANLAYER_API_KEY, Slack and email contact channels, a note that the web UI is the default when no channel is set, humanlayer mcp serve, and humanlayer mcp claude_approvals. It also showed Claude Code’s --permission-prompt-tool pointed at mcp__approvals__request_permission. On 24 Oct 2026 that path returned 404, and the root README describes the current humanlayer CLI, so this page no longer links the missing file. Those commands are not copied here as setup steps.

gotoHuman, from their own pages

As of 17 October 2026, the MCP docs and the server README publish this config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gotoHuman": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@gotohuman/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "GOTOHUMAN_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

The README’s tools are list-forms, get-form-schema (parameter formId), and request-human-review-with-form (formId, fieldData, and optional config, title, webhookUrl, metadata, assignToUsers, and workflow.runId). You create the review type and the API key at their app before the first call.

The homepage describes four steps: set up a review type, send a request, review it in the Agent Inbox or from a notification, and handle the webhook. Besides MCP it lists an n8n node, Make, TypeScript and Python SDKs, a LangGraph example, and an HTTP API. It says the service is GDPR-compliant, that data is stored on European servers, that data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and that the core services they use are certified under SOC 3 and ISO 27001. Those are their descriptions. This page has not audited them.

The pricing page is the source for the dollar amounts in the table.

Invoke Human

The server is https://invokehumantool.com/mcp. Clients sign in with OAuth 2.1. The authorization server publishes dynamic client registration and PKCE S256. The scope is handoffs. You do not put a key in the client config. The remote MCP guide is the 401 and the metadata.

The tools are send_handoff, send_ui_handoff, send_html_handoff, validate_ui, share_handoff, delegate_handoff, get_handoff_status, get_handoff_result, and wait_for_handoff. A question, an approval, a worksheet, or a form the agent generated for this task lands in one inbox on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, and a custom MCP client share that inbox because they share your account. Setup is the hub and the guides.

It does not run your coding agent, host a daemon, or store a repo session tree. If that is the product you wanted, HumanLayer’s current site is the one to read.

There is no published price. Pricing says what is free during beta. share_handoff and delegate_handoff invite or forward a handoff. This site does not publish a review template you design first, or an assignToUsers field.

How to pick

Pick HumanLayer’s current product when you want the coding-agent workspace their homepage describes. Do not pick it from an old tutorial about contact_human. As fetched on 17 Oct 2026, the README said the code there is pretty much all deprecated. On 24 Oct 2026 that README describes the current humanlayer CLI, and hlyr/README.md returns 404.

Pick gotoHuman when the human step is a review you can design once, when you want a webhook, n8n, or Make, or when you need to assign a review to someone by email. Their MCP server assumes the template and the API key exist.

Pick Invoke Human when the agents are already Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, or another MCP client, and you want each of them to call a person without a local process or a key in the config. The agent can ask a one-off question or send a form it just built. You answer on the device you have with you.

Older notes at /alternatives/humanlayer and /alternatives/gotohuman stay up so existing links open. This page is the comparison.