ACP & MCP
Understand where BitRouter uses ACP for agent sessions, MCP for tools, and Agent Skills for portable instructions.
ACP, MCP, and Agent Skills solve different parts of an agent workflow. BitRouter supports all three without pretending they are one protocol.
| Surface | What crosses it | BitRouter's role |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP model APIs | Prompts, responses, usage | Router and protocol-compatible model gateway |
| MCP | Tools, resources, prompts, and upstream Skills | Client, aggregate gateway, and optional server-side tool executor |
| ACP | Agent sessions, turns, updates, permissions | Client/controller and local stdio adapter |
| Agent Skills | Portable instructions stored in SKILL.md | Ships a BitRouter Skill; inspects or scaffolds local skills |
MCP connects tools
Declare third-party MCP servers under mcp_servers in bitrouter.yaml. The daemon exposes each configured upstream at /mcp/{server} and can aggregate participating upstreams at /mcp.
bro mcp check
bro mcp check context7BitRouter OSS does not publish administrative commands such as status or models as an origin MCP server. Agents operate BitRouter through the shipped Agent Skill and structured bro commands. The public Docs MCP server is a separate service for reading this documentation.
ACP connects agents
bro code and bro run drive ACP adapters as clients. bro acp serve <agent> turns the same controller stack around and exposes one adapter over stdio to another ACP client.
bro code codex
bro run claude "Summarize this repository"
bro acp serve codexThis is a local process boundary. Cross-host agent discovery, a durable task service, and multi-agent fleet orchestration are not part of the released ACP surface.
Skills carry instructions
The BitRouter Skill teaches a shell-capable agent which bro commands to run and how to interpret their results. Loading a Skill does not itself grant shell access.
Local skills stay on the agent host's normal skill/plugin rails. BitRouter can list or scaffold them, but it does not install them or publish the local filesystem collection as an MCP origin. Skills advertised by configured upstream MCP servers can still flow through the MCP gateway.
Pick the surface by job
| Goal | Start here |
|---|---|
| Talk to an agent interactively | bro code |
| Run an agent turn from a script | bro run |
| Let an ACP client launch an adapter | bro acp serve |
| Put several MCP servers behind one endpoint | MCP gateway |
| Teach an agent how to operate BitRouter | Skills |
How is this guide?