JetBrains joins ACP development, pledges IDE-wide support
JetBrains will co-develop the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) with Zed and integrate ACP support across its IDE lineup, including IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, and other JetBrains tools. The collaboration aims to make ACP a practical interoperability layer so agents and editors can connect via a single, shared protocol.
What this change means
JetBrains approached Zed following the initial ACP launch and discussions about standardizing agent support across its products. Rather than building bespoke integrations for individual agents, the company opted to adopt ACP as the common method for connecting agents such as Junie, Codex, and Gemini CLI to its IDEs.
The practical impact is straightforward: implementing ACP once allows an agent to be used across multiple editors. That includes Zed, Neovim, Emacs, and now the JetBrains ecosystem — potentially exposing agents to millions of JetBrains users. For agent teams, this reduces the need to maintain separate editor integrations. For editor teams, a single protocol can unlock support for many agents without repeated engineering effort.
How ACP is positioned
ACP is designed to separate agents from editors: agents expose capabilities through a single protocol and editors that adopt ACP gain access to any compatible agent. The intended outcome is reduced duplicated work, smoother interoperability, and greater choice for developers when selecting both tools and agent services.
Key links from the community and project history:
- JetBrains: https://www.jetbrains.com/
- ACP launch blog: https://zed.dev/blog/bring-your-own-agent-to-zed
- ACP progress report: https://zed.dev/blog/acp-progress-report
Next steps for the ecosystem
Agent developers are being encouraged to implement ACP now to reach a broader audience across multiple editors, including the JetBrains user base. Users who prefer specific agents can request ACP support from agent providers.
Zed remains a place to try ACP-enabled workflows today; Zed runs on macOS and Linux and is available for download: /download. Open roles related to the effort are listed at /jobs.
Original source: https://zed.dev/blog/jetbrains-on-acp
