ACP

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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

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How it works

cline --acp

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Clients

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Zed

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

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JetBrains IDEs

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

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Neovim

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

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Emacs

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Other clients

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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.

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Auto-approving tools

• 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": {}
    }
  }
}

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Environment variables

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Next Steps

• CLI Overview
• CLI Reference