Why

The agent should be the variable, your experience the constant. The Agent Client
Protocol makes any compatible agent a plug-in — a CLI-only agent is first-class,
and a vendor's extension improving or being retired never moves your workflow.
Patchbay is the one client that speaks it for all of them: one chat, one permission
model, one session store. The full story →

What Patchbay adds

A faithful ACP client already proves the connection works. Patchbay adds the
orchestrator layer on top:

• 🧭 Capabilities you can trust. An agent's handshake tells you what it
  claims, not what works on the wire. Patchbay tracks every capability as
  declared vs. used and only lights up a feature once the path has genuinely
  fired — "native fork" or "MCP servers" means verified, not promised.
• 🛡️ One permission model. A single permission broker across every agent. You
  review and approve what an agent does — file writes, terminal, tools — the same
  way regardless of which agent is driving.
• 🧩 Editor-aware context. A built-in local MCP server hands agents real editor
  state — current file, selection, open editors, diagnostics, workspace layout —
  and can ask you for input mid-turn. The agent sees what you see.
• 🎛️ Sessions in parallel. Run many sessions at once, on one agent or across
  several, each with its own history. A live dot marks a turn in flight, an unseen
  dot marks a session that finished while you were elsewhere, and a chime — or a
  native OS notification when the view is hidden — tells you the moment a turn
  lands. Detached panels and prompt queueing included.

Everything you'd expect from a great client

• Polished chat composer with inline / commands and @-mentions of workspace files
• Full session history — list, resume, and fork, backed by the agent's own store
• Faithful replay of past sessions (no "last message only" gaps)
• A live plan and a touched-files read-out while the agent works
• MCP integrations, including remote servers over Streamable HTTP, added and verified in-client
• Theme-native UI that follows your VS Code theme

Getting started

1. Open the Patchbay icon in the activity bar.
2. Add an agent in Settings › Agents — search the built-in registry or paste
   any command line that speaks ACP. Adding connects and verifies it in one step.
3. Hit + and go — one agent starts directly, several offer a picker, and a
   not-yet-running agent connects right in the chat pane. The composer's / opens
   the agent's own advertised commands; the context adder attaches your selection,
   current file, diagnostics, or any other file; pasting an image just works.

Settings (gear icon) is where the capability matrix, integrations, permission
rules, and agent / session / rules-skills-commands management live.

Uninstalling cleanly

VS Code has no uninstall hook, and secrets can survive uninstall — so a clean
slate is an explicit act: Settings → Permissions → "Disconnect & erase all
data" stops every agent and deletes everything patchbay stored on this machine
(configs, credentials, caches, rules, the audit). Run it before uninstalling. It
covers the current window's workspace records and deletes by the current config
lists — so run it while those configs still exist.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0. Copyright © 2026
Solutions Unity. See NOTICE for attribution.

Source: github.com/solutionsunity/acp-patchbay.