Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add gaelic-ghost/socket --skill choose-agent-integration-protocolgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gaelic-ghost/socketWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/choose-agent-integration-protocol)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/choose-agent-integration-protocol"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/choose-agent-integration-protocol/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/choose-agent-integration-protocol"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/choose-agent-integration-protocol.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00049 | $0.00800 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00020 | $0.00320 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00010 | $0.00160 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00080 |
Grade A, and why
choose-agent-integration-protocol scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 78 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Choose Agent Integration Protocol
Name the processes and the direction of control before selecting a protocol. Do not use “connect the agents” or “hook into Xcode” as an architecture.
Decision Workflow
- Identify the process that owns the conversation UI.
- Identify the process that owns the agent loop, model, credentials, tools, and persistent sessions.
- Identify whether the other endpoint is an editor, a tool provider, another agent, a terminal, or a custom application.
- Select one primary boundary:
- Use ACP when an editor or compatible client launches and renders an external coding agent.
- Use A2A when independently operated agents discover each other and exchange messages or stateful tasks across a process, machine, or framework boundary.
- Use MCP when an agent calls tools or resources supplied by another
process. An externally running agent uses Xcode through
xcrun mcpbridge. - Use a native host agent when the host should own the model, instructions, skills, permissions, and tools.
- Use a terminal thread when the original CLI or TUI experience is the requirement and editor-native diffs or approvals are unnecessary.
- Use the Hermes TUI gateway or API server when a custom program drives Hermes directly and no ACP client owns the interaction.
- Use a host plug-in only for capabilities that the host's documented skills, MCP, ACP, or configuration surfaces cannot provide.
- Record authentication, working-directory, permission, session, and lifecycle ownership separately. A transport choice does not make those boundaries identical.
Read references/protocol-decision-map.md when the request spans more than one
host or appears to require multiple transports.
Required Distinctions
- ACP makes an agent editor-native; it is not a general tool protocol.
- A2A connects independently operated peer agents; it does not provide an editor UI or replace in-process subagents.
- MCP gives an agent callable tools; it does not provide an editor conversation or review UI.
- Hermes running
hermes acpis the ACP agent/server. Zed or Xcode is the ACP client that launches or connects to it. - A Hermes provider that internally launches another ACP program is a provider-specific integration, not proof that Hermes is a universal ACP client or agent orchestrator.
- Xcode-hosted ACP and an external agent using Xcode MCP are different paths.
What ships with it
2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 1mo ago First seen · 78 lines · 49 tokens per session scan A cf108a4b081f
choose-agent-integration-protocol is a skill published in the GitHub repository gaelic-ghost/socket (7 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 49 tokens to every session and 800 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.
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