What is AgentProc?

AgentProc is a minimal protocol for connecting any Agent CLI to a messaging platform through a process-based interface.

The problem it solves

You have an AI agent — maybe Claude Code, Codex, a custom LLM wrapper, or anything else that runs as a CLI. You want users to talk to it through a messaging app (WeChat, Slack, Telegram, etc.). The glue layer between the two is the hard part:

• How does the message get to the agent?
• How does the reply get back?
• How do you keep conversation context across multiple turns?
• How do you stream responses so users don't wait?

AgentProc answers all of these with the simplest possible interface: environment variables in, stdout out.

How it works

Messaging Platform
      │
      ▼
   Bridge                ← reads your profile YAML, manages the process
      │   env vars
      ▼
 Your Script             ← reads AGENT_MESSAGE, does something, writes to stdout
      │   stdout
      ▼
   Bridge                ← forwards the reply to the user

The bridge injects context as environment variables before starting your process. Your script reads them, calls whatever AI system it wants, and writes the response to stdout. That's the entire protocol.

What it is not

• Not an HTTP API. There's no server to run or endpoint to implement.
• Not a framework. You don't subclass anything or implement interfaces.
• Not platform-specific. AgentProc doesn't know about WeChat, Slack, or any specific messaging app.
• Not opinionated about AI. You can call Claude, GPT, Gemini, a local model, or a simple rule-based system.

Comparison with related protocols

AgentProc occupies a specific niche. The neighboring protocols are similar in shape (subprocess + stdio) but different in purpose.

MCP — Model Context Protocol

MCP connects an LLM application to tools and data sources over JSON-RPC. The direction is reversed: in MCP, the AI is the client and the tool provider is the subprocess; in AgentProc, the bridge is the client and the AI wrapper is the subprocess. They compose naturally — your AgentProc agent may internally use MCP tools.

ACP — Agent Client Protocol

ACP (Zed Industries) connects a code editor to an AI coding agent over long-lived, bidirectional JSON-RPC. It assumes an interactive IDE session with tool calls, file diffs, and mode switching. AgentProc assumes a single chat turn per process invocation. Use ACP if you're building an IDE; use AgentProc if you're bridging a chat bot to a CLI.

NDJSON / JSON Lines

NDJSON is one JSON object per line — the wire format used internally by Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI streaming, and MCP. It's an alternative to AgentProc's sentinel-prefixed plain text. The trade-off: NDJSON forces every emitted line to be valid JSON, which makes echo "You said: $AGENT_MESSAGE" an invalid agent. AgentProc opts for sentinel lines so the common case stays trivial; the cost is one disambiguation rule (reply body must not start with AGENT_*:).

What AgentProc is not

• Not a bot framework. Hubot, Errbot, BotKit, and Microsoft Bot Framework operate on the consumer side of the bridge (in-process adapters, HTTP connectors). AgentProc defines the contract between the bridge and the agent, and is orthogonal to those frameworks.
• Not an agent-to-agent protocol. A2A / AGNTCY solve a different problem (agents talking to each other).
• Not an IDE protocol. Use ACP for that.
• Not a tool protocol. Use MCP for that.

See the full spec for design rationale and additional comparisons with SSE and LSP.