ACP Client for VS Code

What ACP Client for VS Code does

ACP Client for VS Code adds an Agent Client Protocol panel to the editor. It ships with default configurations for 11 agents, including GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Kiro CLI and Hermes Agent, and you can add custom agents in settings. One agent is active at a time, and each agent in the Agents view expands into its previous sessions.

The chat panel renders Markdown, shows tool calls inline in collapsible sections, and displays the agent's reasoning in a collapsible thinking block. Agents can read and write files in the workspace and run terminal commands, with configurable auto-approve policies for these actions. A protocol traffic log shows the raw ACP JSON-RPC messages. For Hermes the extension runs hermes acp, so the hermes command must be on your PATH and VS Code must be launched from the same shell or virtual environment.

Key features

• Pre-configured entries for 11 ACP agents, including Hermes Agent via hermes acp
• Chat panel with Markdown, inline tool calls and a collapsible thinking display
• Per-agent session list that restores earlier conversations
• File system access and terminal execution for agents, with configurable auto-approve policies
• Protocol traffic log of ACP JSON-RPC requests, responses and notifications

When to use it

• Chatting with a local Hermes Agent from inside VS Code instead of a separate terminal
• Switching between Hermes, Claude Code and Codex in one editor panel
• Debugging an ACP agent by inspecting the JSON-RPC traffic

Who it is for: Developers who use VS Code and want one client for several ACP-compatible coding agents, Hermes Agent among them.

How it fits with Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent is one of the extension's 11 default agents and is started with hermes acp; the extension is a general ACP client rather than a Hermes-specific tool.

Requirements: Node.js 18+ for spawning agent processes, and an ACP-compatible agent installed or available via npx. Hermes needs Linux, macOS or WSL2 with the hermes command on PATH.

FAQ