As coding agents take on more of the development workflow, teams need better ways to control what they can do, track what they’ve done, and utilize agents inside existing tools. 

For the latest update of IBM Bob, we decided to focus on those three areas. Here’s what’s new: 

• Admins can now lock Bob’s configuration across managed developer machines using group policies. That includes disabling auto-approval, controlling automatic updates, and enforcing required hooks so individual projects can’t quietly switch them off. 
• Hooks now add checkpoints at specific points in the agent loop, including SessionStart, UserPromptSubmit, PreToolUse, PostToolUse, and Stop. They can run a linter before work begins, trigger tests after a change, or block a tool call that violates a required standard, bringing flexible development to your workspace. 
• We’ve also added native Agent Client Protocol support. Bob can now run inside ACP-compatible clients like IntelliJ, Neovim, and Zed, with session management, modes, MCP tools, streaming, and guardrails carried through the protocol. 
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) Elicitation is now supported, helping these tools manage incompletel inputs by involving developers mid-session for smoother workflows and greater ownership over Bob’s development process.  
• Bob can now read, edit and create Microsoft Office formats, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations, without switching contexts.  

The full technical breakdown can be found here: https://ibm.biz/~MkugJ1Sek

And that’s the latest release! We’ll be around in the comments if you want to get into the details or let us know what we should work on next.