5 ms·

Emacs agent-shell (powered by ACP)

233 points by Karrot_Kream 1y ago

Also: https://xenodium.com/agent-shell-0-5-improvements https://xenodium.com/agent-shell-0-5-improvements

celeritascelery 1y ago
Agent shell is what I always wanted. I have been using many of the different Claude code integrations packages and they are really good. But there is always some friction because I need to run it in a terminal emulator. With agent shell it feels so much more integrated and natural. I am really excited for these improvements, especially reading the env from a file. I wish that agent-shell-sidebar had some screenshots though so I could see what it actually does.
- xenodium 1y ago
  > With agent shell it feels so much more integrated and natural. That's great to hear. > I wish that agent-shell-sidebar had some screenshots though so I could see what it actually does. I nudged the package author for a screenshot. Having said that, you can see it in action here: https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/pull/55 https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/pull/55
xenodium 1y ago
agent-shell: A single native Emacs experience to interact with different AI agents powered by ACP (Agent Client Protocol) https://agentclientprotocol.com https://agentclientprotocol.com So far, agent-shell can interact with Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, and Goose, but can technically work with any ACP-powered agent. ps. agent-shell needs more sponsors to become sustainable https://github.com/sponsors/xenodium https://github.com/sponsors/xenodium
- mijoharas 1y ago
  Very exciting. I used claude-code-ide, but the fact that it's not using comint-mode is a PITA. looking forward to trying this! Can I ask. I haven't dug into the ACP spec. Does it cover the "ide" features too (like Claude code ide. Seems to mostly be telling the agent where your cursor is and diff integration)? Or just the basic stuff?
  - xenodium 1y ago
    It's got some of them already like showing and accepting diffs rendered natively. All edits are committed via Emacs itself and on to open buffers if applicable. TAB navigation. Accepting permission has had a fair amount of iteration to smoothen the experience. It's been quite a bit of work to get here. There are obviously more feature to come. Please file feature requests if you find anything missing and of course, sponsor the project if you truly want it to be sustainable and move forward.
dorian-graph 1y ago
I've used it a few times now. It's a really smooth experience for quite a new package.
mg74 1y ago
I am waiting for someone to build this for Neovim. Come on, you unknown hero! (and thanks to the Zed team and Google for building the spec)
- xenodium 1y ago
  Swing by the Emacs side ;) We got vim bindings too!
  - tjpnz 1y ago
    You can learn Emacs in one day. Every day!
    - theflyinghorse 1y ago
      I've spent 2 month trying out emacs and I feel like I sort of scratched the surface. It's like the deeper you look the more you realize how much more there is
      - mimischi 1y ago
        My biggest revelation was when I realized how to use Emacs to learn about Emacs. Knowing where to look up function, variable definitions etc was an eye opener in my understanding of how things work and are piped together
        hbogert 1y ago
        There was a time when this was the obvious thing to do when making systems. Sadly that's forgotten. Manpages to read on cli tooling is the same thing of course. Yet people rather go to another window, the browser, and go to a ad-driven website and get the same output as the manpage would give.
        koiueo 1y ago
        These days people rather switch to a browser window, open an LLM of their choice in a new tab and in verbose English ask "how do I do X in this popular program Y?". Then get a hallucinated answer and come to you to complain about a missing cli option, while it's literally there, in their terminal, just one -h away. True story (had to vent out, thanks for listening).
didibus 1y ago
There's another project called ECA: https://github.com/editor-code-assistant/eca https://github.com/editor-code-assistant/eca I think the difference is ECA is a coding agent with a LSP-like protocol for various frontend and editors, which itself supports many models. Where as agent protocol if I understand lets you use many agents like Gemini CLI, Claude Code, well assuming they support the protocol, using various frontend? Though I guess other coding agents could also adopt the ECA protocol maybe.
- versteegen 1y ago
  Yes, and the ECA project includes an emacs package; I've been using it recently. I've been diving in to the ECA protocol a bit to debug some emacs issues, and from glancing at the ACP (Agent Client Protocol) documentation, it seems that the ECA and ACP protocols are incredibly similar, and both very well documented. An accident of reinvention.
- ljm 1y ago
  I've tried both and that sounds about right - I had to configure my MCPs for it again and it runs its own server in the background. For that alone I've preferred agent-shell since you just use the agent's own config. That's already enough of a pain point when each agent has its own config format and location, as well as the differences between project and user level config - would be nice if there was a standard for that at some point too.
rjdj377dhabsn 1y ago
So why would one want to use this verses using Claude Code directly?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- xenodium 1y ago
  A unified native user experience built into your text editor. Not only for Claude Code but also any other agent that talks ACP like Gemini CLI, Codex, Goose, etc.
- theflyinghorse 1y ago
  It's the emacs way - emacs eats the world
skissane 1y ago
This is the first I hear of ACP… how does it compare to AG-UI? Well, obviously this is coding-specific and AG-UI aims to be generic… but beyond that obvious point?
- 3836293648 1y ago
  It's the same point as LSP, but with AI agents. It's a pain to implement a claude wrapper and a codex wrapper and a gemini wrapper and an aider wrapper and so on for every editor. So the zed people started the effort to standardise the protocol.
kleinishere 1y ago
Xenodium is doing amazing things for emacs. If you enjoy this or are generally emacs interested, I’d check out his blog @ https://xenodium.com/ https://xenodium.com/ I also purchased my first iOS app upon recommendation from other emacs users - the author’s app, Journelly. A simple portable place to save down links or notes and export out as org files (as one option; apparently markdown is on the way). https://xenodium.com/journelly-for-ios https://xenodium.com/journelly-for-ios No affiliation to Xenodium. I’ve just been diving into emacs this year and love seeing his contributions.
- xenodium 1y ago
  Thank you! This really makes my day. Also glad to hear you’re a Journelly fan. Thank you for purchasing. Building niche apps sustainably is a real challenge.
  - mark_l_watson 1y ago
    Hello my friend, you deserve a good day! I have just spent a few days (part time) getting AiderEmacs working for running local models and commercial APIs. Fairly useful. Next up for me is integrating your agent-shell with Gemini in my Emacs workflow. I will let you know how that goes and any other feedback I think might be useful. EDIT: just finished a 20 minute Emacs session using agent-shell - love it!
    - xenodium 1y ago
      Hey, nice to see ya here! Sure, you know where to find me :)
  - ashton314 1y ago
    I'm going to pile-on here: I enjoy using Journelly a lot and it was an easy purchase for me to make. Thanks for building it!
    - xenodium 1y ago
      Thank you! I really appreciate the words and the purchase!
erwagasore 1y ago
Xenodium is doing great work for Emacs community. I am currently using `agent-shell` but I don't like the header added on the top of the buffer. I already have all information I want at the bottom. The bottom line you have make it optional so that minimalists can choose to remove it.
- xenodium 1y ago
  > but I don't like the header added on the top of the buffer Please file a feature request, so we can make the graphical header optional: https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/issues https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/issues
tobbe2064 1y ago
Im a bit out of the loop. What's the main differences between this one and gptel?
- Ferret7446 1y ago
  gptel provides an Emacs API to use LLMs. ACP provides an API to talk to LLMs. So likely gptel will support an ACP backend in the future.

233 points by Karrot_Kream 1y ago

Also: https://xenodium.com/agent-shell-0-5-improvements https://xenodium.com/agent-shell-0-5-improvements

Agent shell is what I always wanted. I have been using many of the different Claude code integrations packages and they are really good. But there is always some friction because I need to run it in a terminal emulator. With agent shell it feels so much more integrated and natural. I am really excited for these improvements, especially reading the env from a file. I wish that agent-shell-sidebar had some screenshots though so I could see what it actually does.

xenodium 1y ago
> With agent shell it feels so much more integrated and natural. That's great to hear. > I wish that agent-shell-sidebar had some screenshots though so I could see what it actually does. I nudged the package author for a screenshot. Having said that, you can see it in action here: https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/pull/55 https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/pull/55

xenodium 1y ago

agent-shell: A single native Emacs experience to interact with different AI agents powered by ACP (Agent Client Protocol) https://agentclientprotocol.com https://agentclientprotocol.com So far, agent-shell can interact with Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, and Goose, but can technically work with any ACP-powered agent. ps. agent-shell needs more sponsors to become sustainable https://github.com/sponsors/xenodium https://github.com/sponsors/xenodium

mijoharas 1y ago
Very exciting. I used claude-code-ide, but the fact that it's not using comint-mode is a PITA. looking forward to trying this! Can I ask. I haven't dug into the ACP spec. Does it cover the "ide" features too (like Claude code ide. Seems to mostly be telling the agent where your cursor is and diff integration)? Or just the basic stuff?
- xenodium 1y ago
  It's got some of them already like showing and accepting diffs rendered natively. All edits are committed via Emacs itself and on to open buffers if applicable. TAB navigation. Accepting permission has had a fair amount of iteration to smoothen the experience. It's been quite a bit of work to get here. There are obviously more feature to come. Please file feature requests if you find anything missing and of course, sponsor the project if you truly want it to be sustainable and move forward.

dorian-graph 1y ago

I've used it a few times now. It's a really smooth experience for quite a new package.

mg74 1y ago

I am waiting for someone to build this for Neovim. Come on, you unknown hero! (and thanks to the Zed team and Google for building the spec)

xenodium 1y ago
Swing by the Emacs side ;) We got vim bindings too!
- tjpnz 1y ago
  You can learn Emacs in one day. Every day!
  - theflyinghorse 1y ago
    I've spent 2 month trying out emacs and I feel like I sort of scratched the surface. It's like the deeper you look the more you realize how much more there is
    - mimischi 1y ago
      My biggest revelation was when I realized how to use Emacs to learn about Emacs. Knowing where to look up function, variable definitions etc was an eye opener in my understanding of how things work and are piped together
      - hbogert 1y ago
        There was a time when this was the obvious thing to do when making systems. Sadly that's forgotten. Manpages to read on cli tooling is the same thing of course. Yet people rather go to another window, the browser, and go to a ad-driven website and get the same output as the manpage would give.
        koiueo 1y ago
        These days people rather switch to a browser window, open an LLM of their choice in a new tab and in verbose English ask "how do I do X in this popular program Y?". Then get a hallucinated answer and come to you to complain about a missing cli option, while it's literally there, in their terminal, just one -h away. True story (had to vent out, thanks for listening).

didibus 1y ago

There's another project called ECA: https://github.com/editor-code-assistant/eca https://github.com/editor-code-assistant/eca I think the difference is ECA is a coding agent with a LSP-like protocol for various frontend and editors, which itself supports many models. Where as agent protocol if I understand lets you use many agents like Gemini CLI, Claude Code, well assuming they support the protocol, using various frontend? Though I guess other coding agents could also adopt the ECA protocol maybe.

versteegen 1y ago
Yes, and the ECA project includes an emacs package; I've been using it recently. I've been diving in to the ECA protocol a bit to debug some emacs issues, and from glancing at the ACP (Agent Client Protocol) documentation, it seems that the ECA and ACP protocols are incredibly similar, and both very well documented. An accident of reinvention.
ljm 1y ago
I've tried both and that sounds about right - I had to configure my MCPs for it again and it runs its own server in the background. For that alone I've preferred agent-shell since you just use the agent's own config. That's already enough of a pain point when each agent has its own config format and location, as well as the differences between project and user level config - would be nice if there was a standard for that at some point too.

rjdj377dhabsn 1y ago

So why would one want to use this verses using Claude Code directly?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
xenodium 1y ago
A unified native user experience built into your text editor. Not only for Claude Code but also any other agent that talks ACP like Gemini CLI, Codex, Goose, etc.
theflyinghorse 1y ago
It's the emacs way - emacs eats the world

skissane 1y ago

This is the first I hear of ACP… how does it compare to AG-UI? Well, obviously this is coding-specific and AG-UI aims to be generic… but beyond that obvious point?

3836293648 1y ago
It's the same point as LSP, but with AI agents. It's a pain to implement a claude wrapper and a codex wrapper and a gemini wrapper and an aider wrapper and so on for every editor. So the zed people started the effort to standardise the protocol.

kleinishere 1y ago

Xenodium is doing amazing things for emacs. If you enjoy this or are generally emacs interested, I’d check out his blog @ https://xenodium.com/ https://xenodium.com/ I also purchased my first iOS app upon recommendation from other emacs users - the author’s app, Journelly. A simple portable place to save down links or notes and export out as org files (as one option; apparently markdown is on the way). https://xenodium.com/journelly-for-ios https://xenodium.com/journelly-for-ios No affiliation to Xenodium. I’ve just been diving into emacs this year and love seeing his contributions.

xenodium 1y ago
Thank you! This really makes my day. Also glad to hear you’re a Journelly fan. Thank you for purchasing. Building niche apps sustainably is a real challenge.
- mark_l_watson 1y ago
  Hello my friend, you deserve a good day! I have just spent a few days (part time) getting AiderEmacs working for running local models and commercial APIs. Fairly useful. Next up for me is integrating your agent-shell with Gemini in my Emacs workflow. I will let you know how that goes and any other feedback I think might be useful. EDIT: just finished a 20 minute Emacs session using agent-shell - love it!
  - xenodium 1y ago
    Hey, nice to see ya here! Sure, you know where to find me :)
- ashton314 1y ago
  I'm going to pile-on here: I enjoy using Journelly a lot and it was an easy purchase for me to make. Thanks for building it!
  - xenodium 1y ago
    Thank you! I really appreciate the words and the purchase!

erwagasore 1y ago

Xenodium is doing great work for Emacs community. I am currently using `agent-shell` but I don't like the header added on the top of the buffer. I already have all information I want at the bottom. The bottom line you have make it optional so that minimalists can choose to remove it.

xenodium 1y ago
> but I don't like the header added on the top of the buffer Please file a feature request, so we can make the graphical header optional: https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/issues https://github.com/xenodium/agent-shell/issues

tobbe2064 1y ago

Im a bit out of the loop. What's the main differences between this one and gptel?

Ferret7446 1y ago
gptel provides an Emacs API to use LLMs. ACP provides an API to talk to LLMs. So likely gptel will support an ACP backend in the future.