Zed introduces third-party AI agent support with Agent Client Protocol through Gemini CLI

Zed, the open source code editor known for its built-in AI features, now allows users to interact with third-party AI agents directly within the editing environment. This is made possible by the introduction of the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), which empowers seamless communication between Zed and external AI agents.

Building on this, the Zed team partnered with Google to make Gemini CLI the initial ACP-based agent. By running Gemini CLI as a subprocess within Zed, users gain access to the familiar terminal-based AI experience, but with editor-specific enhancements. These include real-time edit visualization, support for multi-buffer reviews, and quick navigation between code and agent interactions.

With ACP, developers can choose agents tailored to their workflow, monitor agent activity as it navigates the codebase, set granular permissions for tools and MCP servers, and review agent-generated changes with syntax highlighting and full language server support. Following this integration, Zed assures users that all code and agent interactions stay local; nothing is sent to Zed's servers.

The Agent Client Protocol is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, encouraging adoption by additional third-party agents, which can use Gemini CLI's ACP implementation as a foundation model.