Exo — AI Coding Agent Client for VS Code

A local AI coding assistant interface that lives in your VS Code sidebar. Exo connects to any ACP-compatible agent — opencode works out of the box, others are on the roadmap — and gives you a clean, native interface for the conversation.

Exo is not an agent. It is a client: it spawns your agent as a child process (via stdio/ACP), renders the conversation in the sidebar, and handles the agent's requests (file access, permissions, config, plans) with native VS Code UX. The agent stays fully in control of its state, sessions, and history.

Why?

Because reading and writing code is much better in a real editor than in a TUI:

• Typography-first. The whole UI is built around readable, syntax-highlighted markdown — nice fonts, proper text. Tool calls collapse into a single compact activity line, so you stay focused on the conversation, not the plumbing.
• Code you can actually look at: hover, jump-to-definition, search, multiline diffs.
• Every file edit the agent makes lands in a real diff editor you can inspect and approve before it happens — flip to YOLO auto-approve in one click whenever you want.
• When the agent references a file, Exo detects it and highlights it — one click opens it at the exact line.
• Every session works in its own isolated git worktree — your main branch stays clean no matter what the agent does, and results land in main with one click.

Everything the agent produces is rendered against the rest of your VS Code workspace, not in an isolated terminal box.

The story

I used to love Cline and KiloCode — until one was abandoned and the other was ported to a new engine that turned it into something genuinely unpleasant to use. Building an agent from scratch is a much bigger project (I did try), so I went the other way: a pure ACP client. That turned out great, and this is the result.

Status

Works nearly perfectly with opencode out of the box. Other ACP agents are on the roadmap — they should work, but expect rough edges and report them.

Features

• / slash-command picker + @ file attachment (fuzzy-matched) + drag-drop of files and images, like the good old days.
• Two permission modes, flipped live with the Auto-Allow toggle in the input:
  • default — every agent permission request is shown for your review, with allow / reject / follow-up options;
  • auto — requests are auto-approved client-side (yolo mode).
• Parallel sessions — each tab is its own agent process, so you can run multiple agents at once and switch between them freely; sessions keep working in the background.
• Isolated git worktree per session — every new session spawns its agent in a fresh exo-<N> git worktree with its own branch, so your main is never touched. The worktree shows up in the Explorer and Source Control, each session gets its own exo-<N> terminal, and results land in main with a single merge click (commit + integrate + safe fast-forward, handled by the agent and the client together).
• A session picker in the header: jump between open sessions, reopen recent ones, or delete them — all in one menu.
• Automatic theming: the UI adapts to your current VS Code color theme. Some places it looks genuinely great, others may still need a tweak.
• Syntax highlighting via Shiki (bundled, no WASM, instant), KaTeX math, and a crash-safe message renderer.
• Persisted draft text and attached files across restarts; sessions are agent-owned and resumable.

Getting started

Requirements: Node.js + npm, VS Code.

npm install
npm run compile        # one-shot build (extension + webview)

Then launch the extension host with F5 (vscode:prepublish runs automatically), or build a .vsix and install it:

npm run install-local   # packages and installs the .vsix (no version bump)
npm run release -- patch # bump version, commit+tag, push + GitHub Release with auto-notes

Configure at least one ACP agent in ~/.config/exo/config.yml ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME, default ~/.config/exo):

# Exo configuration
agents:
  - id: opencode
    type: stdio
    command: opencode
    args: ["acp"]

Open the Exo sidebar, start a session, and talk.

Development

npm run compile   # build extension (out/extension.js) + webview (out/webview.js)
npm run watch     # esbuild watch mode
npm run lint      # ESLint over src/ (webview is not linted)

Architecture notes, module map, protocol contracts and key abstractions live in AGENTS.md at the repository root (the project Memory Bank).

Direction

Exo is developed exclusively in this paradigm — a VS Code-first ACP client. No pivots, no cloud, no hosted anything. The focus is:

• broader ACP protocol coverage and better agent compatibility;
• polishing the editor experience further.

The current state already satisfies my daily workflow, so development will be steady, not frantic. Pull requests that improve things within this paradigm are welcome.

Support

If you like Exo, a tip is always appreciated:

License

GPL-3.0