ACP support in Copilot CLI is now in public preview 🚀

[ebndev]

GitHub Copilot CLI now implements the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), an industry-standard protocol for communication between AI agents and clients. This enables third-party tools, IDEs, and automation systems to integrate directly with Copilot’s agentic capabilities through an extensible interface.

How it works

You can start Copilot in ACP mode via stdio: copilot --acp

Or connect via TCP on a specific port: copilot --acp --port 8080

ACP clients can then:

• Initialize a connection and discover agent capabilities.
• Create isolated sessions with custom working directories.
• Send prompts with text, images, and context resources.
• Receive streaming updates as the agent works.
• Respond to permission requests for tool execution.
• Cancel operations and manage session lifecycle.

Use cases

• IDE integrations: Build Copilot support into any editor or development environment.
• CI/CD pipelines: Orchestrate agentic coding tasks in automated workflows.
• Custom frontends: Create specialized interfaces for specific developer workflows.
• Multi-agent systems: Coordinate Copilot with other AI agents using a standard protocol.

Learn more in our ACP documentation

🌟Leave a comment!

Join the discussion and leave feedback in the comments below!

[jmdaly]

This is awesome! I gave it a try in neovim with codecompanion.nvim and it definitely works. It doesn't look like YOLO mode works with ACP though (copilot --acp --yolo). The ACP intgegration still worked, but I was still getting prompted to confirm edits and tool executions. Would it be possible to support YOLO mode when using ACP?

[stevetru1]

Does the TCP --port options still work in .401/2? I was using it effectively earlier today but ran an upgrade and now am not able to start the ACP server. This is great functionality!

[jiriks74]

Does/will copilot-cli suppoort Session Modes? It would allow eg. NeoVim users to utilize the plan mode, etc.