# Intelligent Terminal Intelligent Terminal is Microsoft's experimental, open-source **fork of Windows Terminal with a native AI agent built into the shell**. It ships as a separate, opt-in app alongside the standard Windows Terminal, so AI features never get forced into the mainline product. Released as v0.1 in June 2026. > An experimental fork of Windows Terminal with native agent integration ; your pair-programmer in the shell. ## What it does The agent lives inside the terminal and has direct access to your shell context (recent commands, output, errors), so you stop copy-pasting between a chat window and your prompt. - **Agent pane** ; a docked, configurable sidebar (top/bottom/left/right) with persistent access to the agent; toggle with `Ctrl+Shift+.`, focus with `Ctrl+Shift+I` - **Automatic error detection** ; when a command fails, a status-bar indicator appears; `Ctrl+Alt+.` opens the agent pane with the error context preloaded, optionally with auto-fix suggestions - **Agent management panel** ; `Ctrl+Shift+/` shows all active agents, their status, and past sessions, so you can resume work across tabs - **Command palette integration** ; type `?` followed by a prompt to launch a background agent task with shell context injected automatically - Works across PowerShell, Command Prompt, and [[Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)|WSL]] shells ## Agent backend Defaults to the [[GitHub Copilot CLI]] as the agent, but it's **provider-agnostic**: any [[Agent Client Protocol (ACP)|ACP]]-compatible agent works, and you can wire in custom or local agents through settings. Microsoft deprecated the older "Terminal Chat" in Canary and consolidated agentic features into this new product. ## Install - Microsoft Store: `9NMQC2SSJX24` - WinGet: `winget install Microsoft.IntelligentTerminal` ## Why it matters It's the terminal-emulator counterpart to in-editor agent modes ; rather than bolting AI onto an IDE, it puts an agent where shell work actually happens, with the shell's own context as the substrate. The ACP-pluggable backend means it isn't locked to Copilot, which is unusual for a first-party Microsoft tool. ## References - Announcement: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-intelligent-terminal-version-0-1/ - Source code: https://github.com/microsoft/intelligent-terminal - Documentation: https://github.com/microsoft/intelligent-terminal/tree/main/doc - Privacy: https://github.com/microsoft/intelligent-terminal/blob/main/PRIVACY.md - Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48373231 ## Related - [[GitHub Copilot CLI]] - [[GitHub Copilot]] - [[Agent Client Protocol (ACP)]] - [[Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)]] - [[How Coding Agents Work]]