ACP Router

acprouter is an ACP client surface for driving ACP agents from Telegram.

Current MVP scope:

• connect to an ACP agent process over stdio
• bind one active ACP session per Telegram chat
• create, load, and list sessions
• stop active runs with /stop
• project ACP approvals, plan updates, tool updates, and agent replies into Telegram
• project ACP-exposed selection state such as current mode, current model, config options, and available slash commands
• answer ACP approval requests with inline buttons
• default to server-owned ACP truth: the ACP server owns tool execution, guardrails, approvals, and projection payloads
• optionally serve ACP client-owned file and terminal requests against the local workspace when the connected ACP server expects them

Run

You can create a Telegram app from here to obtain an API id and hash. Finally, you will need to create a bot from BotFather and keep the bot token.

Environment variables:

Variable	Required	Purpose
ACPROUTER_COMMAND	yes	Stdio ACP server command that ACP Router launches and talks to.
TELEGRAM_API_ID	yes	Telegram API id for the bot client session.
TELEGRAM_API_HASH	yes	Telegram API hash for the bot client session.
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN	yes	Telegram bot token from BotFather.
ACPROUTER_WORKSPACE_ROOT	no	Workspace root for client-owned file and terminal requests. Defaults to the current working directory.
ACPROUTER_STATE_DIR	no	Local state directory for chat/session bindings. Defaults to .acprouter-state under the workspace root.
ACPROUTER_AGENT_CWD	no	Working directory for the ACP subprocess. Defaults to the workspace root.
ACPROUTER_TELEGRAM_SESSION	no	Telegram client session name. Defaults to acprouter-bot.
ACPROUTER_TELEGRAM_BUSINESS_CONNECTION_ID	no	Optional Telegram business connection id.
ACPROUTER_STDIO_BUFFER_LIMIT_BYTES	no	Stdio buffer limit for the ACP subprocess. Defaults to 50 MiB.
ACPROUTER_ENABLE_HOST_TOOLS	no	Enables ACP client-owned file and terminal methods. Defaults to true.
ACPROUTER_STREAMING_DEFAULT	no	Enables incremental Telegram reply edits by default. Defaults to false.
ACPROUTER_STREAMING_EDIT_INTERVAL_SECONDS	no	Minimum interval between Telegram streaming edits. Defaults to 1.0.
ACPROUTER_LOG_LEVEL	no	Python logging level. Defaults to INFO.

ACPROUTER_AGENT_COMMAND is still accepted as a legacy name for ACPROUTER_COMMAND, but new setups should use ACPROUTER_COMMAND. No surface selector is required; ACP Router is Telegram-only.

ACPROUTER_ENABLE_HOST_TOOLS defaults to true. This only affects ACP client-owned file and terminal requests. It does not make ACP Router invent projection truth or override server-owned tool semantics.

When client-owned host tools are enabled:

• file paths must stay inside the configured workspace root
• file paths must stay inside the active session cwd
• command cwd must stay inside the active session cwd
• read, write, and execute requests require Telegram approval
• rejected requests return a reason back to the ACP server

If you explicitly set ACPROUTER_ENABLE_HOST_TOOLS=false, ACP Router returns a rejection reason for ACP client-owned host requests instead of executing them.

ACPROUTER_STREAMING_DEFAULT defaults to false. This is a Telegram render preference, not ACP state. Leave it off to buffer agent chunks and send the final reply once. Turn it on only when you want incremental Telegram edits.

Run:

uv run acprouter

ACP Agent Command

ACPROUTER_COMMAND must start an ACP server over stdio. It can point at any command that speaks ACP JSON on stdout and writes logs to stderr.

For a local Pydantic AI agent adapted by ACP Kit, point the command at the agent symbol:

export ACPROUTER_COMMAND='acpkit run examples.pydantic_acp_agent:agent'
uv run acprouter

For a local LangChain graph adapted by ACP Kit, point the command at the graph symbol:

export ACPROUTER_COMMAND='acpkit run examples.langchain_acp_graph:graph'
uv run acprouter

For an in-process Python integration, create an ACP agent object with ACP Kit and pass it directly to the Telegram gateway:

from acprouter import TelegramGateway
from pydantic_acp import create_acp_agent

acp_agent = create_acp_agent(agent=pydantic_agent)
gateway = TelegramGateway.from_acp_agent(acp_agent, telegram_settings())
await gateway.run()

See examples/acprouter_with_acpkit_instance.py for the full version.

For a remote ACP server exposed over WebSocket, run the server with ACP Kit or acpremote, then mirror that endpoint back into a local stdio ACP boundary:

# Remote host
acpkit serve examples.pydantic_acp_agent:agent --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

# Machine running acprouter
export ACPROUTER_COMMAND='acpkit run --addr ws://remote.example.com:8080/acp/ws'
uv run acprouter

Use acpkit serve ... when the target is a Python runtime that ACP Kit should resolve into an adapter. Use acpremote.serve_acp(...) or acpremote.serve_command(...) when the target already is an ACP agent or a stdio ACP command and only needs WebSocket transport.

Concrete examples:

• examples/pydantic_acp_agent.py
• examples/langchain_acp_graph.py
• examples/acprouter_with_acpkit_instance.py
• examples/acpremote_bridge_server.py
• examples/acprouter_remote_acp.py

More detail is in docs/getting-started/agent-server.md.

Construct Programmatically

Use TelegramGateway.from_settings(...) when acprouter should spawn the ACP subprocess from ACPROUTER_COMMAND:

from __future__ import annotations as _annotations

import asyncio

from acprouter import AppSettings, TelegramGateway

settings = AppSettings.from_env()
gateway = TelegramGateway.from_settings(settings)

asyncio.run(gateway.run())

Use TelegramGateway.from_acp_agent(...) when another part of the process already owns the ACP agent:

from __future__ import annotations as _annotations

import asyncio

from acprouter import AppSettings, TelegramGateway

settings = AppSettings.from_env()
gateway = TelegramGateway.from_acp_agent(acp_agent, settings)

asyncio.run(gateway.run())

Notes:

• ACPROUTER_COMMAND must launch an ACP agent that writes ACP JSON only to stdout.
• Agent logs should go to stderr, otherwise the ACP stdio connection will break.

Contributor setup and local quality commands are documented in CONTRIBUTING.md. Gateway construction details are documented in docs/gateway.md.

Current Commands

• /new create and bind a fresh ACP session
• /new <name> create and bind a fresh ACP session, then store the alias for the current chat
• /session show the active session id for the current chat
• /mode <mode-id> switch the active session mode
• /<mode-id> shorthand for switching directly into a mode such as /ask, /plan, or /agent
• dynamic ACP commands ACP Router also registers ACP-exposed selection and command surfaces as Telegram commands when the names are Telegram-safe. For example, ACP mode, model, and select-style config surfaces can appear as commands such as /agent, /model <provider:model>, or /thinking <medium|high>. If an ACP name is not Telegram-safe, ACP Router publishes a Telegram alias such as /read_only for ACP /read-only and routes it back to the original ACP name.
• /switch <session-id-or-alias> load and bind an existing session
• /sessions list available sessions
• /stop cancel the current run
• /streaming <true|false> toggle incremental Telegram reply edits for the current chat

Selection Rendering

When the ACP server exposes mode, model, config, or command-selection state, ACP Router renders a Telegram projection card for that session and turns Telegram-safe selections into commands.

Typical examples:

• ACP current mode becomes visible in the session selections card
• ACP current model becomes visible in the same card
• ACP config options such as thinking=medium render as selection rows
• ACP commands with unstructured input hints can appear as commands such as /thinking medium|high

ACP Router does not invent these surfaces. If the ACP server does not expose them, there is nothing to render or register.