Run the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) bridge that talks to an Genesis Gateway.

This command speaks ACP over stdio for IDEs and forwards prompts to the Gateway over WebSocket. It keeps ACP sessions mapped to Gateway session keys.

genesis acp is a Gateway-backed ACP bridge, not a full ACP-native editor runtime. It focuses on session routing, prompt delivery, and basic streaming updates.

If you want an external MCP client to talk directly to Genesis channel conversations instead of hosting an ACP harness session, use genesis mcp serve instead.

What this is not

This page is often confused with ACP harness sessions.

genesis acp means:

• Genesis acts as an ACP server
• an IDE or ACP client connects to Genesis
• Genesis forwards that work into a Gateway session

This is different from ACP Agents, where Genesis runs an external harness such as Codex or Claude Code through acpx.

Quick rule:

• editor/client wants to talk ACP to Genesis: use genesis acp
• Genesis should launch Codex/Claude/Gemini as an ACP harness: use /acp spawn and ACP Agents

Compatibility Matrix

Known Limitations

• loadSession replays stored user and assistant text history, but it does not reconstruct historic tool calls, system notices, or richer ACP-native event types.
• If multiple ACP clients share the same Gateway session key, event and cancel routing are best-effort rather than strictly isolated per client. Prefer the default isolated acp:<uuid> sessions when you need clean editor-local turns.
• Gateway stop states are translated into ACP stop reasons, but that mapping is less expressive than a fully ACP-native runtime.
• Initial session controls currently surface a focused subset of Gateway knobs: thought level, tool verbosity, reasoning, usage detail, and elevated actions. Model selection and exec-host controls are not yet exposed as ACP config options.
• session_info_update and usage_update are derived from Gateway session snapshots, not live ACP-native runtime accounting. Usage is approximate, carries no cost data, and is only emitted when the Gateway marks total token data as fresh.
• Tool follow-along data is best-effort. The bridge can surface file paths that appear in known tool args/results, but it does not yet emit ACP terminals or structured file diffs.

Usage

genesis acp

# Remote Gateway
genesis acp --url wss://gateway-host:18789 --token <token>

# Remote Gateway (token from file)
genesis acp --url wss://gateway-host:18789 --token-file ~/.genesis/gateway.token

# Attach to an existing session key
genesis acp --session agent:main:main

# Attach by label (must already exist)
genesis acp --session-label "support inbox"

# Reset the session key before the first prompt
genesis acp --session agent:main:main --reset-session

ACP client (debug)

Use the built-in ACP client to sanity-check the bridge without an IDE. It spawns the ACP bridge and lets you type prompts interactively.

genesis acp client

# Point the spawned bridge at a remote Gateway
genesis acp client --server-args --url wss://gateway-host:18789 --token-file ~/.genesis/gateway.token

# Override the server command (default: genesis)
genesis acp client --server "node" --server-args genesis.mjs acp --url ws://127.0.0.1:19001

Permission model (client debug mode):

• Auto-approval is allowlist-based and only applies to trusted core tool IDs.
• read auto-approval is scoped to the current working directory (--cwd when set).
• ACP only auto-approves narrow readonly classes: scoped read calls under the active cwd plus readonly search tools (search, web_search, memory_search). Unknown/non-core tools, out-of-scope reads, exec-capable tools, control-plane tools, mutating tools, and interactive flows always require explicit prompt approval.
• Server-provided toolCall.kind is treated as untrusted metadata (not an authorization source).
• This ACP bridge policy is separate from ACPX harness permissions. If you run Genesis through the acpx backend, plugins.entries.acpx.config.permissionMode=approve-all is the break-glass “yolo” switch for that harness session.

How to use this

Use ACP when an IDE (or other client) speaks Agent Client Protocol and you want it to drive an Genesis Gateway session.

1. Ensure the Gateway is running (local or remote).
2. Configure the Gateway target (config or flags).
3. Point your IDE to run genesis acp over stdio.

Example config (persisted):

genesis config set gateway.remote.url wss://gateway-host:18789
genesis config set gateway.remote.token <token>

Example direct run (no config write):

genesis acp --url wss://gateway-host:18789 --token <token>
# preferred for local process safety
genesis acp --url wss://gateway-host:18789 --token-file ~/.genesis/gateway.token

Selecting agents

ACP does not pick agents directly. It routes by the Gateway session key.

Use agent-scoped session keys to target a specific agent:

genesis acp --session agent:main:main
genesis acp --session agent:design:main
genesis acp --session agent:qa:bug-123

Each ACP session maps to a single Gateway session key. One agent can have many sessions; ACP defaults to an isolated acp:<uuid> session unless you override the key or label.

Per-session mcpServers are not supported in bridge mode. If an ACP client sends them during newSession or loadSession, the bridge returns a clear error instead of silently ignoring them.

If you want ACPX-backed sessions to see Genesis plugin tools or selected built-in tools such as cron, enable the gateway-side ACPX MCP bridges instead of trying to pass per-session mcpServers. See ACP Agents and Genesis tools MCP bridge.

Use from acpx (Codex, Claude, other ACP clients)

If you want a coding agent such as Codex or Claude Code to talk to your Genesis bot over ACP, use acpx with its built-in genesis target.

Typical flow:

1. Run the Gateway and make sure the ACP bridge can reach it.
2. Point acpx genesis at genesis acp.
3. Target the Genesis session key you want the coding agent to use.

Examples:

# One-shot request into your default Genesis ACP session
acpx genesis exec "Summarize the active Genesis session state."

# Persistent named session for follow-up turns
acpx genesis sessions ensure --name codex-bridge
acpx genesis -s codex-bridge --cwd /path/to/repo \
  "Ask my Genesis work agent for recent context relevant to this repo."

If you want acpx genesis to target a specific Gateway and session key every time, override the genesis agent command in ~/.acpx/config.json:

{
  "agents": {
    "genesis": {
      "command": "env GENESIS_HIDE_BANNER=1 GENESIS_SUPPRESS_NOTES=1 genesis acp --url ws://127.0.0.1:18789 --token-file ~/.genesis/gateway.token --session agent:main:main"
    }
  }
}

For a repo-local Genesis checkout, use the direct CLI entrypoint instead of the dev runner so the ACP stream stays clean. For example:

env GENESIS_HIDE_BANNER=1 GENESIS_SUPPRESS_NOTES=1 node genesis.mjs acp ...

This is the easiest way to let Codex, Claude Code, or another ACP-aware client pull contextual information from an Genesis agent without scraping a terminal.

Zed editor setup

Add a custom ACP agent in ~/.config/zed/settings.json (or use Zed’s Settings UI):

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "Genesis ACP": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "genesis",
      "args": ["acp"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

To target a specific Gateway or agent:

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "Genesis ACP": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "genesis",
      "args": [
        "acp",
        "--url",
        "wss://gateway-host:18789",
        "--token",
        "<token>",
        "--session",
        "agent:design:main"
      ],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

In Zed, open the Agent panel and select “Genesis ACP” to start a thread.

Session mapping

By default, ACP sessions get an isolated Gateway session key with an acp: prefix. To reuse a known session, pass a session key or label:

• --session <key>: use a specific Gateway session key.
• --session-label <label>: resolve an existing session by label.
• --reset-session: mint a fresh session id for that key (same key, new transcript).

If your ACP client supports metadata, you can override per session:

{
  "_meta": {
    "sessionKey": "agent:main:main",
    "sessionLabel": "support inbox",
    "resetSession": true
  }
}

Learn more about session keys at /concepts/session.

Options

• --url <url>: Gateway WebSocket URL (defaults to gateway.remote.url when configured).
• --token <token>: Gateway auth token.
• --token-file <path>: read Gateway auth token from file.
• --password <password>: Gateway auth password.
• --password-file <path>: read Gateway auth password from file.
• --session <key>: default session key.
• --session-label <label>: default session label to resolve.
• --require-existing: fail if the session key/label does not exist.
• --reset-session: reset the session key before first use.
• --no-prefix-cwd: do not prefix prompts with the working directory.
• --provenance <off|meta|meta+receipt>: include ACP provenance metadata or receipts.
• --verbose, -v: verbose logging to stderr.

Security note:

• --token and --password can be visible in local process listings on some systems.
• Prefer --token-file/--password-file or environment variables (GENESIS_GATEWAY_TOKEN, GENESIS_GATEWAY_PASSWORD).
• Gateway auth resolution follows the shared contract used by other Gateway clients:
  • local mode: env (GENESIS_GATEWAY_*) -> gateway.auth.* -> gateway.remote.* fallback only when gateway.auth.* is unset (configured-but-unresolved local SecretRefs fail closed)
  • remote mode: gateway.remote.* with env/config fallback per remote precedence rules
  • --url is override-safe and does not reuse implicit config/env credentials; pass explicit --token/--password (or file variants)
• ACP runtime backend child processes receive GENESIS_SHELL=acp, which can be used for context-specific shell/profile rules.
• genesis acp client sets GENESIS_SHELL=acp-client on the spawned bridge process.

acp client options

• --cwd <dir>: working directory for the ACP session.
• --server <command>: ACP server command (default: genesis).
• --server-args <args...>: extra arguments passed to the ACP server.
• --server-verbose: enable verbose logging on the ACP server.
• --verbose, -v: verbose client logging.

Related

• CLI reference
• ACP agents