diff --git a/src/acp/terminal-manager.ts b/src/acp/terminal-manager.ts
index e22bf9ba..f19dff8e 100644
--- a/src/acp/terminal-manager.ts
+++ b/src/acp/terminal-manager.ts
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ import type {
 } from "@agentclientprotocol/sdk";
 import { PermissionDeniedError, PermissionPromptUnavailableError } from "../errors.js";
 import { promptForPermission } from "../permission-prompt.js";
-import { buildSpawnCommandOptions } from "../spawn-command-options.js";
+import { buildShellExec, buildSpawnCommandOptions } from "../spawn-command-options.js";
 import type { ClientOperation, NonInteractivePermissionPolicy, PermissionMode } from "../types.js";
 
 const DEFAULT_TERMINAL_OUTPUT_LIMIT_BYTES = 64 * 1024;
@@ -190,10 +190,11 @@ export class TerminalManager {
         0,
         Math.round(params.outputByteLimit ?? DEFAULT_TERMINAL_OUTPUT_LIMIT_BYTES),
       );
+      const exec = buildShellExec(params.command, params.args);
       const proc = spawn(
-        params.command,
-        params.args ?? [],
-        buildTerminalSpawnOptions(params.command, params.cwd ?? this.cwd, params.env),
+        exec.command,
+        exec.args,
+        buildTerminalSpawnOptions(exec.command, params.cwd ?? this.cwd, params.env),
       );
       await waitForSpawn(proc);
 
diff --git a/src/spawn-command-options.ts b/src/spawn-command-options.ts
index 27bb516f..0e354529 100644
--- a/src/spawn-command-options.ts
+++ b/src/spawn-command-options.ts
@@ -74,3 +74,41 @@ export function buildSpawnCommandOptions(
     shell: true,
   };
 }
+
+export type ShellExec = {
+  command: string;
+  args: string[];
+};
+
+/**
+ * Resolve a `terminal/create` request into an actual `spawn()` argv pair.
+ *
+ * The ACP `CreateTerminalRequest` schema models `command` as the executable
+ * and `args` as its argument vector, mirroring `child_process.spawn(cmd, args)`.
+ * In practice, several agents (Claude Code, Codex-style wrappers, and others)
+ * place a full shell command line in the `command` field and leave `args`
+ * empty. Other ACP clients — notably Zed via its `ShellBuilder` — handle this
+ * by always running the request through the system shell, so those agents work
+ * out of the box. Spawning the unsplit string directly fails with `ENOENT`
+ * because the shell line is treated as an executable name.
+ *
+ * To match the de facto behavior of other ACP clients, when `args` is empty we
+ * route the command through `/bin/sh -c <command>` on Unix or `cmd.exe /C
+ * <command>` on Windows. When `args` is non-empty we honor the literal ACP
+ * contract and spawn `command` with the provided argv unchanged. This keeps
+ * well-behaved agents on the original direct-spawn fast path while letting
+ * "raw shell line" agents work transparently.
+ */
+export function buildShellExec(
+  command: string,
+  args: string[] | undefined,
+  platform: NodeJS.Platform = process.platform,
+): ShellExec {
+  if (args && args.length > 0) {
+    return { command, args };
+  }
+  if (platform === "win32") {
+    return { command: "cmd.exe", args: ["/d", "/s", "/c", command] };
+  }
+  return { command: "/bin/sh", args: ["-c", command] };
+}
diff --git a/test/spawn-options.test.ts b/test/spawn-options.test.ts
index 5da9ad57..239efc4a 100644
--- a/test/spawn-options.test.ts
+++ b/test/spawn-options.test.ts
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ import { resolveAgentSessionCwd } from "../src/acp/client-process.js";
 import { buildAgentSpawnOptions, buildSpawnCommandOptions } from "../src/acp/client.js";
 import { buildTerminalSpawnOptions } from "../src/acp/terminal-manager.js";
 import { buildQueueOwnerSpawnOptions } from "../src/cli/session/queue-owner-process.js";
+import { buildShellExec } from "../src/spawn-command-options.js";
 
 test("buildAgentSpawnOptions hides Windows console windows and preserves auth env", () => {
   const options = buildAgentSpawnOptions("/tmp/acpx-agent", {
@@ -130,6 +131,38 @@ test("buildSpawnCommandOptions keeps shell disabled for non-batch commands", asy
   }
 });
 
+test("buildShellExec passes through command and args verbatim when args are non-empty", () => {
+  const linuxExec = buildShellExec("node", ["-e", "console.log('ok')"], "linux");
+  assert.deepEqual(linuxExec, { command: "node", args: ["-e", "console.log('ok')"] });
+
+  const windowsExec = buildShellExec("npx", ["create-foo"], "win32");
+  assert.deepEqual(windowsExec, { command: "npx", args: ["create-foo"] });
+});
+
+test("buildShellExec wraps command in /bin/sh -c on Unix when args are missing or empty", () => {
+  const fromUndefined = buildShellExec("ls -la /Users/foo/", undefined, "linux");
+  assert.deepEqual(fromUndefined, { command: "/bin/sh", args: ["-c", "ls -la /Users/foo/"] });
+
+  const fromEmpty = buildShellExec("echo hello | tr a-z A-Z", [], "darwin");
+  assert.deepEqual(fromEmpty, {
+    command: "/bin/sh",
+    args: ["-c", "echo hello | tr a-z A-Z"],
+  });
+});
+
+test("buildShellExec wraps command in cmd.exe /d /s /c on Windows when args are empty", () => {
+  const exec = buildShellExec("dir C:\\Users", undefined, "win32");
+  assert.deepEqual(exec, { command: "cmd.exe", args: ["/d", "/s", "/c", "dir C:\\Users"] });
+});
+
+test("buildShellExec preserves bare commands without args by routing through the shell", () => {
+  // A bare token like "ls" still goes through the shell so PATH lookup,
+  // aliases, and shell builtins behave consistently regardless of whether
+  // an agent splits args or not.
+  const exec = buildShellExec("ls", undefined, "linux");
+  assert.deepEqual(exec, { command: "/bin/sh", args: ["-c", "ls"] });
+});
+
 test("resolveAgentSessionCwd translates WSL cwd for Windows exe agents", async () => {
   let capturedCwd: string | undefined;
   const inputCwd = "/home/user/project";
diff --git a/test/terminal.test.ts b/test/terminal.test.ts
index c84d5727..7d771497 100644
--- a/test/terminal.test.ts
+++ b/test/terminal.test.ts
@@ -133,3 +133,83 @@ test("terminal manager fails when prompt is unavailable and policy is fail", asy
     await fs.rm(tmp, { recursive: true, force: true });
   }
 });
+
+test("terminal manager runs an unsplit shell command line passed in the command field", async (t) => {
+  if (process.platform === "win32") {
+    t.skip("POSIX-shell behavior; Windows path covered elsewhere");
+    return;
+  }
+  const tmp = await fs.mkdtemp(path.join(os.tmpdir(), "acpx-terminal-test-"));
+  try {
+    const manager = new TerminalManager({
+      cwd: tmp,
+      permissionMode: "approve-all",
+    });
+
+    // The whole shell line lives in `command`; `args` is omitted on purpose,
+    // mirroring the request shape used by Claude Code, codebuddy, and other
+    // agents that don't pre-split their Bash tool input.
+    const created = await manager.createTerminal({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      command: "echo hello-from-shell",
+    });
+
+    const waitResult = await manager.waitForTerminalExit({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      terminalId: created.terminalId,
+    });
+    assert.equal(waitResult.exitCode, 0);
+
+    const outputResult = await manager.terminalOutput({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      terminalId: created.terminalId,
+    });
+    assert.match(outputResult.output, /hello-from-shell/);
+
+    await manager.releaseTerminal({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      terminalId: created.terminalId,
+    });
+  } finally {
+    await fs.rm(tmp, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  }
+});
+
+test("terminal manager honors shell metacharacters in an unsplit command", async (t) => {
+  if (process.platform === "win32") {
+    t.skip("POSIX-shell behavior; Windows path covered elsewhere");
+    return;
+  }
+  const tmp = await fs.mkdtemp(path.join(os.tmpdir(), "acpx-terminal-test-"));
+  try {
+    const manager = new TerminalManager({
+      cwd: tmp,
+      permissionMode: "approve-all",
+    });
+
+    const created = await manager.createTerminal({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      command: "printf 'one\\ntwo\\nthree\\n' | wc -l",
+    });
+
+    const waitResult = await manager.waitForTerminalExit({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      terminalId: created.terminalId,
+    });
+    assert.equal(waitResult.exitCode, 0);
+
+    const outputResult = await manager.terminalOutput({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      terminalId: created.terminalId,
+    });
+    // wc -l prints the count; tolerate leading whitespace from BSD/GNU wc.
+    assert.match(outputResult.output, /^\s*3\b/);
+
+    await manager.releaseTerminal({
+      sessionId: "session-1",
+      terminalId: created.terminalId,
+    });
+  } finally {
+    await fs.rm(tmp, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  }
+});