Cline ACP

An ACP-compatible coding agent powered by Cline.

Use Cline from ACP clients such as Zed!

Features

- Context @-mentions
- Images
- Tool calls with permission requests
- Plan/Act mode switching
- Multiple AI model support (via Cline's provider configuration)
- Streaming responses
- Tool integration testing capabilities

Prerequisites

You need the Cline CLI installed:

``bash
npm install -g cline
`

Configure your API key in Cline's settings before use.

Installation

`bash
npm install cline-acp
`

Usage

Start the ACP agent:

`bash
cline-acp
`

The agent will automatically connect to an existing Cline instance or start a new one.

$3

1. Install dependencies (if not already done):

`bash
npm install -g cline-acp
`

2. Configure Zed by adding the agent server to your Zed settings.json:

`json
{
"agent_servers": {
"Cline": {
"type": "custom",
"command": "cline-acp"
}
}
}
`

For more information about Zed's external agents, see Zed's External Agent documentation.

$3

Any ACP-compatible client can use this agent. Learn more about the Agent Client Protocol.

How It Works

This adapter connects to Cline via its gRPC interface:

`
┌─────────────┐ ACP ┌─────────────────┐ gRPC ┌─────────────┐
│ ACP Client │◄────────────►│ cline-acp │◄───────────►│ cline-core │
│ (Zed) │ (stdio) │ │ │ │
└─────────────┘ └─────────────────┘ └─────────────┘
`

Cline handles all file operations and tool execution internally.

Image Support

Image attachments (screenshots, images) are supported when using a vision-capable model in Cline:

- Images are converted to data URLs and passed to Cline's API
- The model must support image/vision input (e.g., Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4V)
- If you switch to a non-vision-capable model, you'll see an error: "No endpoints found that support image input"

To use images, simply paste or attach them in your ACP client (e.g., Zed).

Known Limitations

Due to limitations in the Cline CLI's gRPC interface, some ACP features are not fully supported:

| Feature | Status | Notes |
| -------------------------- | ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Line numbers in file edits | Not available | Cline's ToolMessage struct doesn't include line number fields. File paths work, but jump-to-line is not supported. |
| Available commands | Not available | Cline doesn't expose a list of available slash commands through its gRPC interface. |

These limitations are upstream in the Cline CLI and would require changes to the cline/cline repository to resolve.

$3

- Model switching during retry: If you switch models while Cline is retrying a failed API request, the session may become stuck. Workaround: Cancel and start a new session.

Development

`bash


Install dependencies

npm install

Build

npm run build

Run tests

npm run test:run

Start in development mode

npm run dev
``

Acknowledgments

Inspired by claude-code-acp by Zed Industries.

Repository

https://github.com/Tonksthebear/cline-acp

License

Apache-2.0