ACP — Agent Client Protocol

What is ACP?

The Agent Client Protocol (ACP) is an open standard by Zed Industries and JetBrains that enables any AI coding agent to integrate seamlessly with any editing environment.

Owner: Zed Industries + JetBrains Registry: ACP Registry

How It Works

Editor (Client)    ←→  ACP Protocol  ←→  AI Agent (Server)
     Zed                                     Amp
     JetBrains                               Custom agents

Unlike MCP (which connects models to tools), ACP connects agents to editors.

Agents in the ACP Registry

Agent	ACP Support
Amp	✅ Native
JetBrains AI	✅
Community agents	Growing

How to Register Your Agent

1. Implement the ACP protocol
2. Open a PR to the ACP Registry repo
3. Once merged, your agent appears in all ACP-compatible editors

ACP vs MCP

	ACP	MCP
Focus	Agent ↔ Editor	Model ↔ Tools
You register	Your agent	Your tool server
Initiated by	Zed + JetBrains	Anthropic

An agent can support both protocols.

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