Agent Emacs — AI skill for Claude Code

Agent Emacs

An Emacs set up for one job: running AI coding agents — [Claude Code](https://code.claude.com) and [Codex](https://developers.openai.com/codex) — side by side, with every session one keystroke away.

It is built around the [`agent`](https://github.com/benthamite/agent) package and comes with the defaults Emacs should have had all along: no backup clutter, a theme that follows your system's light or dark mode, the usual Mac shortcuts, modern completion, and files that refresh when an agent changes them.

It runs as its own Emacs instance, so it does not touch any Emacs configuration you already have.

Install (macOS)

1. Install Emacs 30 or later, Git and Node:

   brew install --cask emacs
   brew install git node

2. Install the agents you want to use:

   curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash   # Claude Code
   npm install -g @openai/codex                     # Codex

   Log in to each once from a terminal (`claude`, then `codex`).

3. Get Agent Emacs and start it:

   git clone https://github.com/benthamite/agent-emacs ~/.config/agent-emacs
   ~/.config/agent-emacs/bin/agent-emacs

The first start downloads and builds the packages, which takes a few minutes. When it is done, Agent Emacs runs `M-x agent-setup`, which checks that the agents are installed. Agent Emacs never edits your Claude Code settings: the hooks that tell Emacs when a session is waiting for you are passed only to the sessions it starts, so `claude` in a terminal is unaffected. You can run `M-x agent-setup` again at any time.

To start Agent Emacs from Spotlight or the Dock, create an app around the launcher, for example with Automator ("Run Shell Script": `~/.config/agent-emacs/bin/agent-emacs`).

Use

Keys	What it does
C-c a	Agent menu: start, resume, switch and close sessions
C-c s	Switch to a session
C-c w	Jump to the next session waiting for you
C-c c	Clau