claude-agent-acp

claude-agent-acp is an Agent Client Protocol (ACP) adapter that wraps Anthropic’s Claude Agent SDK so any ACP-compatible client — code editors like Zed, or other tooling that speaks the protocol — can drive Claude as a full coding agent. It runs as a standalone CLI process spawned by the ACP client, translating protocol messages into Claude Agent SDK calls and back.

It supports the richer end of agentic editor integration: context @-mentions, image input, tool calls with permission prompts, interactive and background terminals, custom slash commands, and client-side MCP servers — the same capabilities Claude Code itself exposes, made available to any editor that implements ACP instead of only Anthropic’s own tooling.

What You Get

• A standalone claude-agent-acp binary implementing the ACP agent-side protocol
• Full tool-call support with client-side permission requests
• Context @-mentions and image input passed through to Claude
• Interactive and background terminal support for running commands from the agent
• Support for custom slash commands and client-provided MCP servers

Common Use Cases

• Wiring Claude into ACP-compatible editors (e.g. Zed) as a first-class coding agent
• Building custom ACP clients that need a ready-made Claude-backed agent implementation
• Giving editor tooling access to Claude’s tool-use, terminal, and MCP capabilities without reimplementing the Claude Agent SDK integration
• Prototyping agentic editor features that require edit review, TODO tracking, or slash-command support

Under The Hood

Architecture: The core logic lives in src/acp-agent.ts, which implements the ACP agent-side protocol handlers and bridges them to the Claude Agent SDK, with src/tools.ts (1,200+ lines) mapping Claude’s tool-call surface (file edits, terminal commands, MCP tool invocations) onto ACP’s tool-call and permission-request messages; src/elicitation.ts handles interactive user prompts, and src/settings.ts manages agent configuration. The src/index.ts entrypoint is the CLI binary that ACP clients spawn as a subprocess, communicating over the protocol’s message channel, while src/lib.ts exposes the same functionality as an importable library for embedding. Tech Stack: TypeScript targeting Node.js, built with tsc, tested with vitest (including a dedicated integration test mode via RUN_INTEGRATION_TESTS=true), linted with ESLint and Prettier, released via release-please. Code Quality: 15 test files exercise the ACP-to-Claude-Agent-SDK bridge logic, and the project maintains a generated CHANGELOG.md with frequent, automated releases (v0.59.0 at time of writing), reflecting active, well-maintained development. API Design: The package exposes both a zero-config CLI binary (for editors that just spawn a subprocess) and a typed library entrypoint (dist/lib.js) for embedding the same bridge logic directly into a custom ACP client.