ACP

Use Cline as the coding agent in Zed, JetBrains IDEs, Neovim, Emacs, and any other ACP-capable client.

Cline CLI speaks the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), an open standard that lets editors and other tools drive terminal-based coding agents. Any ACP-capable client can use Cline as its coding agent without a dedicated extension — the same agent you use in the terminal, embedded in the tool you’re already working in.

Prerequisites

• Cline CLI installed (install via npm i -g cline)
• Credentials are optional up front — most clients let you sign in when the first session starts, and credentials saved by cline auth are reused automatically

How it works

ACP mode is started with the --acp flag:

cline --acp

You don’t run this yourself — the client launches the command and talks to Cline over stdio. Configure the client to run it, then start a thread from its agent UI.

If a client can’t spawn the agent, it may not inherit your shell’s PATH. Use the absolute path from which cline as the command.

Clients

ACP is supported by a growing ecosystem of editors, IDEs, and other tools. Setup for the most popular clients is below; the ACP client directory maintains the full list.

Zed

Add Cline as a custom agent in Zed’s settings.json:

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "Cline": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "cline",
      "args": ["--acp"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Open the Agent Panel, start a new thread, and select Cline.

JetBrains IDEs

AI Assistant in JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, and others) supports ACP agents. In the AI Chat tool window, select Add Custom Agent — this creates ~/.jetbrains/acp.json — then add Cline:

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "Cline": {
      "command": "cline",
      "args": ["--acp"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Cline then appears in the AI Chat agent selector.

Neovim

The CodeCompanion plugin ships a built-in cline_cli ACP adapter that runs cline --acp. Set it as your chat adapter:

require("codecompanion").setup({
  strategies = {
    chat = { adapter = "cline_cli" },
  },
})

Other Neovim ACP clients, such as avante.nvim and agentic.nvim, can also launch Cline via cline --acp.

Emacs

agent-shell drives ACP agents from a native Emacs buffer. Configure a custom agent that runs cline --acp per the agent-shell docs.

Other clients

Anything that speaks ACP can run Cline the same way — point it at cline --acp. The client directory includes note-taking apps like Obsidian, notebooks like marimo, mobile clients, and chat bridges for Slack, Discord, and Telegram.

What works over ACP

• Sign-in from the client — if no credentials are found, the client prompts you to sign in with Cline, ClinePass, or a ChatGPT subscription. Credentials saved by cline auth are reused automatically.
• Plan/Act modes — switch between Plan and Act from the client’s mode selector.
• Model and provider selection — pick any model from the active provider’s catalog, or switch providers, from the client’s model picker.
• Permission prompts — file edits and commands are approved through the client’s permission UI. Nothing is auto-approved by default, but you can auto-approve all tools per session or at launch.
• Session resume — conversations are persisted, so clients that support session loading can restore a thread after a restart.
• Images — prompts can include images for vision-capable models.
• Organization switching — Cline team accounts can switch between personal and organization billing.

Auto-approving tools

By default every file edit and command goes through the client’s permission UI. To let Cline run tools without asking:

• Per session — sessions expose an Auto-approve tools toggle in the client’s session settings (clients that support ACP config options, like Zed, render it alongside the model and mode pickers). Flipping it takes effect on the next tool call.
• At launch — pass --auto-approve true in the client’s agent config to start every session with auto-approval on:

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "Cline": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "cline",
      "args": ["--acp", "--auto-approve", "true"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

With auto-approval on, Cline edits files and runs commands without asking. Only enable it in workspaces where you’re comfortable with unattended changes.

Environment variables

Set these under env in the client’s agent server config to preconfigure the agent:

Variable	Effect
CLINE_API_KEY	Authenticate with an API key instead of interactive sign-in
CLINE_PROVIDER	Pin the provider (disables provider switching in the client)
CLINE_MODEL	Default model for new sessions

Next Steps

• CLI Overview
• CLI Reference