Intelligent Terminal is an experimental fork of Windows Terminal, with the core goal of natively integrating AI agents into the command line. It is not a separate new terminal, but an independent app installed side by side with the existing Windows Terminal, so it does not affect the original terminal's usage flow.
In terms of purpose, Intelligent Terminal lets users get AI assistance without leaving the terminal. It communicates with agent CLIs through the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), and supports any ACP-compatible agent CLI. If the user has no preferred agent, it defaults to GitHub Copilot CLI, which can be automatically installed via WinGet.
Main capabilities include:
- Agent status bar: located at the bottom of the window, with the agent pane toggle (Ctrl+Shift+.) and error detection icon (Ctrl+Alt+.) on the left, the agent management icon (Ctrl+Shift+/) on the right, and can also display the current token usage and cost.
- Agent pane: a context-aware docked pane that can read the output context of all shells (PowerShell, Bash/WSL). Supports pasting clipboard images with Alt+V, viewing available commands with /, and displaying the command list with /help. Commands suggested by the agent are not executed automatically and require explicit user approval.
- Agent management: view all active agents, statuses, and historical sessions, and continue previous workflows or check long-running tasks.
- Error detection: when a command fails, an indicator appears in the status bar; clicking it or pressing Ctrl+Alt+. opens the agent pane and loads the error context, and the agent can explain the cause and suggest or run a fix. The /fix command can also be used to trigger a fix at any time.
- Command palette: entering ? plus a prompt in the command palette starts an agent task; Intelligent Terminal injects the active pane's context and starts the agent in a background tab. Alt+Shift+/ goes directly into prompt mode.
How to use: requires Windows 10 2004 (19041) or later, as well as a supported agent CLI and subscription. Installation from the Microsoft Store is recommended, and it can also be installed via the winget package Microsoft.IntelligentTerminal. On firstlaunch, select an agent; Intelligent Terminal automatically detects ACP-compatible agents on the machine (Copilot/Claude/Codex/Gemini/OpenCode/Antigravity). If none are found, it defaults to GitHub Copilot CLI and installs it via WinGet. If not authenticated, the agent pane will guide login. GitHub Copilot Enterprise users can press E at the login prompt to enter the enterprise host.
Use cases: suitable for developers who want direct AI assistance inside the terminal, especially scenarios where the agent needs to understand shell output, detect errors, and suggest fix commands. Supports BYOK (bring your own key), and OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions endpoints can be used through GitHub Copilot and OpenCode by adding the Base URL, Model ID, and optional API Key in Agent settings, then selecting from the /model selector. API keys are stored in Windows Credential Manager, and local Ollama models can be used without a key.
Limitations and notes: Intelligent Terminal is a local transport layer that passes prompts and shell context to the selected agent CLI via stdio/ACP. It does not itself call any cloud API and does not persist conversation history, but it may write diagnostic logs and send telemetry. Where data goes depends on the selected agent CLI, and Terminal cannot guarantee the data protection of third-party agents, so the agent vendor's privacy policy should be reviewed before use. The agent will not run commands in the shell without explicit user approval. This software is experimental, and feature requests or bugs can be submitted through the GitHub repository. The build method is the same as Windows Terminal.
