Set up an agent
Kumo installs no CLI. Here is every agent it drives and how to get one.
Kumo does not bundle an agent, install one for you, or sign you in. There is no OAuth flow in the app and no box to paste an API key into. Every agent below is a command-line tool you install and sign in to yourself, exactly as you would without Kumo. Your models, MCP servers, hooks and rules stay in that tool's own configuration.
No agent is the house favourite. Whichever ones are installed show up in the New Agent menu, in the order you set. They all work the same way inside Kumo.
Every agent, alphabetically
Commands are the vendor's own and were correct on 7 September 2026. If one has moved, the linked page is the authority.
| Agent | Install | Sign in |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code | Run claude once and sign in through the browser. |
| Cline | npm i -g cline | Run cline once and pick a provider. |
| Codex | npm i -g @openai/codex | codex login |
| Copilot | npm i -g @github/copilot | Run copilot once and sign in with GitHub. |
| Cursor | curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash | cursor-agent login |
| DeepSeek Harness | npm i -g @deepseek-ai/dsh | Bring your own DeepSeek API key — see its docs. |
| Gemini | npm i -g @google/gemini-cli | Run gemini once and sign in with Google. |
| Goose | curl -fsSL https://github.com/aaif-goose/goose/releases/download/stable/download_cli.sh | bash | goose configure |
| Grok | curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash | grok login |
| Hermes | curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash | hermes login |
| Kilo Code | npm i -g @kilocode/cli | Run kilo once and pick a provider. |
| Kimi Code | curl -fsSL https://code.kimi.com/kimi-code/install.sh | bash | kimi login |
| OpenCode | npm i -g opencode-ai | opencode providers login |
| Pi | npm i -g @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent | Bring your own provider key in the environment — see its docs. |
| Qwen Code | npm i -g @qwen-code/qwen-code | Run qwen once and sign in. |
Claude and Codex need one extra thing, which Kumo already did
Those two do not speak the Agent Client Protocol themselves, so Kumo ships their official ACP
adapters inside the app and runs them with node. You still install
claude and codex yourself; the adapter drives the copy you
installed.
Check it worked
Open Settings (⌘,) → Agents. Every agent is listed with its
version if Kumo can run it, or greyed out with an INSTALL link if it cannot. For the agents
that publish a quota (Claude, Codex, Cursor, Grok, Kimi), the same row shows how much of it
is used.
If an agent is installed but Kumo cannot start it, the tab shows one error naming the agent and where to get it, with a Retry. If it starts but rejects you, that is a sign-in problem: run its CLI in a terminal, sign in there, and retry. Kumo never holds credentials.
Order and the default agent
In Settings → Agents, untick the agents you never use to hide them, and drag the rest by their
handle into the order you want. The + menu lists them in that order, and
the first one is the default, marked DEFAULT. To change the default, drag
another one to the top.
The default is also what an agent gets when it starts another agent with
kumo spawn and names no backend. See
Agents working together.
Anything else that speaks ACP
Settings → Agents → CUSTOM AGENTS takes a name, one command line, and
optional environment variables. Anything that speaks the Agent Client Protocol over stdio
works, in the same shape as Zed's agent_servers. A custom agent sits alongside
the built-in ones: it can be hidden, reordered, made the default, and picked per conversation.
Kumo only checks that the executable exists; it never runs the command to probe it.
Custom agents start without the extras Kumo knows for the built-in ones: no session list to resume from and no quota. Every permission request still comes to you.
GitHub
Starting Workspaces from issues and pull requests, and everything on the
Tasks page that comes from GitHub, needs the gh CLI.
Settings → Integrations shows whether it is installed and signed in, and its
button types brew install gh or gh auth login --web into the sidebar
terminal for you. Kumo stores no GitHub token of its own. It wraps gh, and the
credentials stay in gh's keychain entry.