A Visual Studio Code extension that provides a client for the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) — connect to any ACP-compatible AI coding agent directly from your editor.

This is a fork of formulahendry/vscode-acp with changes that are not in the published extension. The main branch carries all of them merged; each one also lives on its own branch off upstream main so it can be offered upstream separately.

• Type and send while the agent works. The composer stays enabled for the whole turn and Enter always sends. A prompt sent mid-turn waits for the running turn by default; acp.chat.midRunPrompt: "send" hands it to the agent right away, which agents that steer a running turn apply to it.
• File edit diffs on the tool call. A tool call that edits a file shows the added and removed line counts and holds the diff, collapsed until the row is clicked. No editor tab is opened.
• Questions from the agent. The client advertises elicitation form support and renders a request in the chat: a single choice becomes buttons, anything else a small form built from the schema.
• Sessions side by side. A new conversation opens another session on the connection that is already there instead of killing the agent process. A tab strip shows one tab per live session and marks the ones that are working.
• Continue where you left off. Connecting to an agent continues the most recent session of the current folder instead of opening an empty one, falling back to a fresh session when there is nothing to continue.
• Message boundaries in the chat (#56 by @gandazgul), so consecutive agent messages of one turn are no longer concatenated into a single block.

Build and install it locally:

npm ci
npx vsce package
code --install-extension acp-client-*.vsix --force

• Multi-Agent Support: Connect to 11 pre-configured ACP agents or add your own
• Single-Agent Focus: One agent active at a time — seamlessly switch between agents
• Per-Agent Session List: Each agent in the Agents view is expandable into its previous sessions. Click a session to restore its history in the chat. Backed by session/list when the agent supports it, or by a local per-workspace cache otherwise.
• Session Config Options: Dynamic per-session selectors (mode, model, reasoning level, …) advertised by the agent are rendered automatically in the composer toolbar.
• Interactive Chat: Built-in chat panel with Markdown rendering, inline tool call display, and collapsible tool sections
• Thinking Display: See agent reasoning in a collapsible block with streaming animation and elapsed time
• Slash Commands: Autocomplete popup for agent-provided commands with keyboard navigation
• Mode & Model Picker: Switch agent modes and models directly from the chat toolbar (kept for agents that haven't migrated to Session Config Options yet)
• File System Integration: Agents can read and write files in your workspace
• Terminal Execution: Agents can run commands with terminal output display
• Permission Management: Configurable auto-approve policies for agent actions
• Protocol Traffic Logging: Inspect all ACP JSON-RPC messages with request/response/notification labels
• Agent Registry: Browse and discover available ACP agents
• Chat Persistence: Conversations are preserved when switching panels

1. Install: Visual Studio Code Marketplace | Open in VS Code | Open VSX Marketplace
2. Open the ACP Client panel from the Activity Bar (ACP icon)
3. Click + to add an agent configuration, or use the defaults
4. Click an agent to connect
5. Start chatting!

• Node.js 18+ (for spawning agent processes)
• An ACP-compatible agent installed or available via npx

The extension comes with default configurations for:

You can add custom agent configurations in settings.

Note on Hermes Agent: Hermes is a Python package, not an npm package. Install it via the Hermes Quickstart (Linux/macOS/WSL2 only — Windows requires WSL2). Make sure hermes is on your PATH and launch VS Code from the same shell/venv. Configure credentials with hermes model.

All commands are accessible via the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P):

• Node.js 18+
• VS Code 1.85+

git clone https://github.com/formulahendry/vscode-acp.git
cd vscode-acp
npm install

npm run compile    # One-time build
npm run watch      # Watch mode for development

Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.

npm run pretest    # Compile tests + lint
npm test           # Run tests

npm run package    # Production build
npx @vscode/vsce package   # Create .vsix

The extension follows a modular architecture:

• Core: AgentManager, ConnectionManager, SessionManager, AcpClientImpl
• Handlers: FileSystemHandler, TerminalHandler, PermissionHandler, SessionUpdateHandler
• UI: SessionTreeProvider, ChatWebviewProvider, StatusBarManager
• Config: AgentConfig, RegistryClient
• Utils: Logger, StreamAdapter

Communication with agents uses the ACP protocol (JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio).

• Agents must be available via the system PATH or npx
• Some agents may require additional authentication setup
• File attachment feature is not yet functional

• ACP Client on Visual Studio Code Marketplace
• Agent Client Protocol
• GitHub Repository

• ACP UI — A modern, cross-platform desktop client for the Agent Client Protocol (ACP)
• WeChat ACP — Bridge WeChat chat messages to any ACP-compatible AI agent (Claude, Codex, Copilot, Qwen, Gemini, OpenCode and more)

MIT — see LICENSE for details.