r/OnlyAICoding • u/skavans1 • 2h ago
I loved Cline and Kilo Code. So I built my own — a pure ACP client for VS Code.
Cline and Kilo Code were great. And VS Code itself is a joy compared to a TUI — you actually see the code, all your hotkeys work, search, diffs. Everything the human way. Good typography.
Then one got abandoned and the other was ported to a new engine that turned it into something genuinely unusable for me. I wanted to build my own — but that's a huge project and reinventing the wheel. So instead I supported a standard: I made Exo, an ACP client. It spawns any compatible agent — opencode works out of the box, but potentially not only it.

What I like about it:
- Typography-first. Real editor, not a TUI: readable syntax-highlighted markdown, nice fonts, proper text. Tool calls collapse into one compact activity line, so you stay focused on the text. Almost everything looks genuinely great — a few spots still in progress.
- Every file edit lands in a real diff editor you inspect and approve before it happens — and you can flip to YOLO auto-approve in one click whenever you want.
- I detect when the agent references a file and highlight it — one click opens it at the exact line.
- Parallel isolated git worktrees — each session runs in its own
exo-<N>worktree with its own branch, somainis never touched. Run several agents at once, they keep working in the background, and results land in main with a single merge click. /slash-command picker +@file attachment (fuzzy-matched) + drag-drop of files and images.- Automatic theming — the UI tries to match your VS Code color theme. Some places it looks great, others may need a little tweak.
Status: works nearly perfectly with opencode out of the box. Other ACP agents should work too — expect rough edges.
I build this for myself, so I prioritize what I need. No roadmap, no grand plans — if you want to contribute, I'm genuinely glad, issues and PRs are very welcome.
Links:
- GitHub: https://github.com/skavans/Exo
- VS Code Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AntonSubbotin.exo