Acpx

Use acpx as a headless ACP CLI for agent-to-agent communication, including prompt/exec/sessions workflows, session scoping, queueing, permissions, and output formats.

When to use this skill

Use this skill when you need to run coding agents through acpx, manage persistent ACP sessions, queue prompts, or consume structured agent output from scripts.

What acpx is

acpx is a headless, scriptable CLI client for the Agent Client Protocol (ACP). It is built for agent-to-agent communication over the command line and avoids PTY scraping.

Core capabilities:

• Persistent multi-turn sessions per repo/cwd
• One-shot execution mode (exec)
• Named parallel sessions (-s/--session)
• Queue-aware prompt submission with optional fire-and-forget (--no-wait)
• Cooperative cancel command (cancel) for in-flight turns
• Graceful cancellation via ACP session/cancel on interrupt
• Session control methods (set-mode, set <key> <value>)
• Agent reconnect/resume after dead subprocess detection
• Prompt input via stdin or --file
• Config files with global+project merge and config show|init
• Session metadata/history inspection (sessions show, sessions history)
• Local agent process checks via status
• Stable ACP client methods for filesystem and terminal requests
• Stable ACP authenticate handshake via env/config credentials
• Structured streaming output (text, json, quiet)
• Built-in agent registry plus raw --agent escape hatch

Install

bash

npm i -g acpx

For normal session reuse, prefer a global install over npx.

Command model

prompt is the default verb.

bash

acpx [global_options] [prompt_text...]
acpx [global_options] prompt [prompt_options] [prompt_text...]
acpx [global_options] exec [prompt_options] [prompt_text...]
acpx [global_options] cancel [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] set-mode <mode> [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] set <key> <value> [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] status [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] sessions [list | new [--name <name>] | close [name] | show [name] | history [name] [--limit <count>]]
acpx [global_options] config [show | init]

acpx [global_options] <agent> [prompt_options] [prompt_text...]
acpx [global_options] <agent> prompt [prompt_options] [prompt_text...]
acpx [global_options] <agent> exec [prompt_options] [prompt_text...]
acpx [global_options] <agent> cancel [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] <agent> set-mode <mode> [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] <agent> set <key> <value> [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] <agent> status [-s <name>]
acpx [global_options] <agent> sessions [list | new [--name <name>] | close [name] | show [name] | history [name] [--limit <count>]]

If prompt text is omitted and stdin is piped, acpx reads prompt text from stdin.

Built-in agent registry

Friendly agent names resolve to commands:

• codex -> npx @zed-industries/codex-acp
• claude -> npx @zed-industries/claude-agent-acp
• gemini -> gemini
• opencode -> npx opencode-ai
• pi -> npx pi-acp

Rules:

• Default agent is codex for top-level prompt, exec, and sessions.
• Unknown positional agent tokens are treated as raw agent commands.
• --agent <command> explicitly sets a raw ACP adapter command.
• Do not combine a positional agent and --agent in the same command.

Commands

Prompt (default, persistent session)

Implicit:

bash

acpx codex 'fix flaky tests'

Explicit:

bash

acpx codex prompt 'fix flaky tests'
acpx prompt 'fix flaky tests'   # defaults to codex

Behavior:

• Uses a saved session for the session scope key
• Auto-resumes prior session when one exists for that scope
• If no session exists for the scope, exits with NO_SESSION and prompts for sessions new
• Is queue-aware when another prompt is already running for the same session
• On interrupt during an active turn, sends ACP session/cancel before force-kill fallback

Prompt options:

• -s, --session <name>: use a named session within the same cwd
• --no-wait: enqueue and return immediately when session is already busy
• -f, --file <path>: read prompt text from file (- means stdin)

Exec (one-shot)

bash

acpx exec 'summarize this repo'
acpx codex exec 'summarize this repo'

Behavior:

• Runs a single prompt in a temporary ACP session
• Does not reuse or save persistent session state

Cancel / Mode / Config

bash

acpx codex cancel
acpx codex set-mode plan
acpx codex set approval_policy conservative

Behavior:

• cancel: sends cooperative session/cancel through queue-owner IPC.
• set-mode: calls ACP session/set_mode.
• set: calls ACP session/set_config_option.
• set-mode/set route through queue-owner IPC when active, otherwise reconnect directly.

Sessions

bash

acpx sessions
acpx sessions list
acpx sessions new
acpx sessions new --name backend
acpx sessions close
acpx sessions close backend
acpx sessions show
acpx sessions history --limit 20
acpx status

acpx codex sessions
acpx codex sessions new --name backend
acpx codex sessions close backend
acpx codex sessions show backend
acpx codex sessions history backend --limit 20
acpx codex status

Behavior:

• sessions and sessions list are equivalent
• new creates a fresh session for the current (agentCommand, cwd, optional name) scope
• new --name <name> targets a named session scope
• when new replaces an existing open session in that scope, the old one is soft-closed
• close targets current cwd default session
• close <name> targets current cwd named session
• show [name] prints stored metadata for that scoped session
• history [name] prints stored turn history previews (default 20, use --limit)

Global options

• --agent <command>: raw ACP agent command (escape hatch)
• --cwd <dir>: working directory for session scope (default: current directory)
• --approve-all: auto-approve all permission requests
• --approve-reads: auto-approve reads/searches, prompt for writes (default mode)
• --deny-all: deny all permission requests
• --format <fmt>: output format (text, json, quiet)
• --timeout <seconds>: max wait time (positive number)
• --ttl <seconds>: queue owner idle TTL before shutdown (default 300, 0 disables TTL)
• --verbose: verbose ACP/debug logs to stderr

Permission flags are mutually exclusive.

Config files

Config files are merged in this order (later wins):

• global: ~/.acpx/config.json
• project: <cwd>/.acpxrc.json

Supported keys:

• defaultAgent
• defaultPermissions (approve-all, approve-reads, deny-all)
• ttl (seconds)
• timeout (seconds or null)
• format (text, json, quiet)
• agents map (name -> { command })
• auth map (authMethodId -> credential)

Use acpx config show to inspect the resolved config and acpx config init to create the global template.

Session behavior

Persistent prompt sessions are scoped by:

• agentCommand
• absolute cwd
• optional session name

Persistence:

• Session records are stored in ~/.acpx/sessions/*.json.
• -s/--session creates parallel named conversations in the same repo.
• Changing --cwd changes scope and therefore session lookup.
• closed sessions are retained on disk with closed: true and closedAt.
• auto-resume by scope skips closed sessions.

Resume behavior:

• Prompt mode attempts to reconnect to saved session.
• If adapter-side session is invalid/not found, acpx creates a fresh session and updates the saved record.
• explicitly selected session records can still be resumed via loadSession even if previously closed.
• dead saved PIDs are detected and reconnected on the next prompt.
• each completed prompt stores lightweight turn history previews in the session record.

Prompt queueing and --no-wait

Queueing is per persistent session.

• The active acpx process for a running prompt becomes the queue owner.
• Other invocations submit prompts over local IPC.
• On Unix-like systems, queue IPC uses a Unix socket under ~/.acpx/queues/<hash>.sock.
• Ownership is coordinated with a lock file under ~/.acpx/queues/<hash>.lock.
• On Windows, named pipes are used instead of Unix sockets.
• after the queue drains, owner shutdown is governed by TTL (default 300s, configurable with --ttl).

Submission behavior:

• Default: enqueue and wait for queued prompt completion, streaming updates back.
• --no-wait: enqueue and return after queue acknowledgement.
• Ctrl+C during an active turn sends ACP session/cancel, waits briefly, then force-kills only if cancellation does not finish in time.
• cancel sends the same cooperative cancellation without requiring terminal signals.

Output formats

Use --format <fmt>:

• text (default): human-readable stream with updates/tool status and done line
• json: NDJSON event stream (good for automation)
• quiet: final assistant text only

Example automation:

bash

acpx --format json codex exec 'review changed files' \
  | jq -r 'select(.type=="tool_call") | [.status, .title] | @tsv'

Permission modes

• --approve-all: no interactive permission prompts
• --approve-reads (default): approve reads/searches, prompt for writes
• --deny-all: deny all permission requests

If every permission request is denied/cancelled and none approved, acpx exits with permission-denied status.

Practical workflows

Persistent repo assistant:

bash

acpx codex 'inspect failing tests and propose a fix plan'
acpx codex 'apply the smallest safe fix and run tests'

Parallel named streams:

bash

acpx codex -s backend 'fix API pagination bug'
acpx codex -s docs 'draft changelog entry for release'

Queue follow-up without waiting:

bash

acpx codex 'run full test suite and investigate failures'
acpx codex --no-wait 'after tests, summarize root causes and next steps'

One-shot script step:

bash

acpx --format quiet exec 'summarize repo purpose in 3 lines'

Machine-readable output for orchestration:

bash

acpx --format json codex 'review current branch changes' > events.ndjson

Raw custom adapter command:

bash

acpx --agent './bin/custom-acp-server --profile ci' 'run validation checks'

Repo-scoped review with permissive mode:

bash

acpx --cwd ~/repos/shop --approve-all codex -s pr-842 \
  'review PR #842 for regressions and propose minimal patch'