ACP separates the editor from the agent: you swap agents without swapping environments and without losing project context. GitHub Copilot works as a protocol server, Claude Code connects through an adapter.
- JetBrains announced support for the Agent Client Protocol in WebStorm - an open standard separating the development environment from the AI agent.
- GitHub Copilot works as a protocol server; Claude Code connects through an adapter. Which other environments support it, the announcement does not say.
- Their comparison is to the Language Server Protocol, which once untied editors from languages.
I switched agents last week and it knew nothing about the project. Indexing from scratch, context from scratch, patience from scratch.
The comparison is not marketing, it is accurate. Before LSP every editor wrote its own support for every language and the work grew as a square. After it one protocol did the job for all of them, and the language stopped locking you into an editor.
Today the same arithmetic sits with agents, except the lock costs more. The environment remembers your project and the agent carries the skills. Tie them to each other and swapping one costs you the other.
We run a fleet of agents daily. A shared protocol means tomorrow's better model gets plugged in rather than endured. I will test it on a real project and say whether it holds.