Claude Code lands in Zed via ACP, now in public beta
Zed has released a public beta that brings Anthropic’s Claude Code into the editor through its new Agent Client Protocol (ACP). ACP, designed by the Zed team and announced last month, is as an open standard that defines inter-agent communication and that could potentially make any agent connect to Zed—and potentially other editors. The announcement follows community requests for a native integration across X posts and GitHub discussions, which Zed references in its post.
What the integration enables
The beta runs Claude Code natively in Zed, expanding beyond a terminal-only experience. According to Zed, the integration is intended to provide control and visibility when agents make multi-file changes or refactor complex logic.
Key capabilities include:
- Integrated agent interface inside Zed, rather than a terminal interface
- Real-time follow-along editing across multiple files, with syntax highlighting and language server support (details)
- Review and approval of changes in a multibuffer, including hunk-level accept/reject
- Task list anchoring in the sidebar to track in-progress work
- Custom workflows via slash commands, enabled by Claude Code’s custom slash commands
Zed notes that Claude Code can run alongside the editor’s first-party agent and other ACP-compatible agents, with available agents surfaced in the Agent Panel’s Plus menu.
Built on an open standard
Zed implemented the integration with ACP, which it positions as an open, editor-agnostic protocol. The team built an adapter that wraps Claude Code’s SDK and translates interactions into ACP’s JSON RPC format, allowing Claude Code to run as an independent process while Zed provides the UI.
- Open-source adapter: The Claude Code adapter is available under the Apache license at github.com/zed-industries/claude-code-acp.
- Cross-editor support: Because ACP is already supported by the Neovim CodeCompanion plugin, the same adapter also brings Claude Code to Neovim.
- Zed credits Xuanwo for early ACP work on Claude Code and links to his profiles on GitHub and X.
Current limitations and what’s next
Zed characterizes this as a beta focused on delivering as much core Claude Code functionality as the SDK permits. The post notes several areas still in progress:
- Plan mode is slated to arrive in the “coming days.”
- Many built-in slash commands are not yet supported by the SDK, which limits feature parity.
The post invites further agent integrations and states that developers can adopt ACP or help address SDK gaps. For Claude Code specifically, Zed links to an issue suggesting that Anthropic bring the SDK to parity or adopt ACP directly.
Contribution and feedback pathways
Zed states that ACP is designed to make any agent usable in Zed, Neovim, and other editors that adopt the protocol. The post includes links to:
- Discuss or contribute to ACP: github.com/zed-industries/agent-client-protocol
- Contribute to the Claude Code adapter: github.com/zed-industries/claude-code-acp
- General questions and integration help: github.com/zed-industries/zed
Availability
The Claude Code integration is available in public beta inside Zed via ACP. Zed’s post states that this release is intended to demonstrate ACP’s editor-agnostic approach and lay groundwork for additional agents to connect over the same protocol. The announcement also links to the download page and a jobs page. No pricing details or timelines beyond “coming days” for Plan mode are provided.
For full details and links, Zed’s announcement is available at zed.dev/blog/claude-code-via-acp.
