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Computer Use plugin unavailable in ACP mode despite being enabled in CLI (Windows, 1.0.91) #5049
Description
Activity
This bug is wider than the ACP functionality. It doesn't load on Mac OS either in CLI or ACP mode.
I've been losing my mind thinking I was doing something wrong because the documentation is pretty clear with how they expect you to enable it but it doesn't work, I tried quite a few different supported CLI versions and also tried them with
--experimentalbut I had no luck. The CLI is mostly JS so I took a look at the cli-main.js in the package and found that there's an environment variable gating access to computer use.To enable the computer use plugin, set the
COMPUTER_USEenvironment variable totruebefore launching copilot CLI.e.g. on my machine in bash with
export COMPUTER_USE=truebefore running copilot CLI I get:
Or on Windows with a PowerShell host:
$env:COMPUTER_USE = "true"; copilot plugin list
After the plugin loads you still need to enable computer use with
/computer on.This either needs the documentation updated to reflect this pre-requisite or the env var gating should be removed in the CLI. There is precedent in having an environment variable to opt-in to allowing the computer to be controlled, I can see other references to
COMPUTER_USE=1in various agent frameworks online but it's inconsistently applied as a truthy flag to opt-in and an env var isn't a very strong security control. IMO it's not required as you need to turn it on with/computer onin the harness anyway, the extra layer seems redundant.
Description
Computer Use is enabled in the CLI, but an ACP session reports the bundled plugin as unavailable. The ACP server advertises the
/computercommand, so the command is recognized, but the plugin and its MCP server are not available in the session.Environment
Steps to reproduce
copilot plugin list. It reportscomputer-use (v0.1.92) [enabled]under built-in plugins.copilot --acp --stdio.initialize, thensession/newwith a local working directory andmcpServers: [].available_commands_updateincludescomputer./computer showas a single text block insession/prompt./plugin listand/mcp listthrough ACP.Actual behavior
/computer showreturns:The bundled computer-use plugin is absent from ACP
/plugin list, and its server is absent from ACP/mcp list.Expected behavior / clarification requested
If Computer Use is supported over ACP, the enabled bundled plugin and MCP server should be available to local ACP sessions on supported operating systems. If ACP is intentionally unsupported, please document this limitation and make the command output explain it.
Additional context
The October 1 announcement describes availability in Copilot CLI and the Copilot app, while the setup documentation describes interactive CLI sessions without explicitly addressing ACP: