Qt Creator 21 Beta released

We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 21 Beta!

You find a small highlight of improvements and fixes below. Please have a look at our change log for more detailed information.

General

• The Extensions browser moved into Preferences mode

AI Support

• The ACP integration and MCP server are now enabled by default, and the MCP server now requires authentication with a bearer token by default as well.

• We added support for the new ACP protocol version 2.
• The ACP chat received many improvements: Agents from the registry can be automatically updated, new sessions can be created specifically for previously used workspaces, and, if supported by the agent, sessions can be deleted, agents can be switched to a new session, and token usage information for the session and for the turn are shown in the chat.
• We updated MCP support to the 2026-07-28 protocol version.
• We added many new MCP tools and made them configurable in the preferences.

Editing

• We added an editor for .qdoc files with a rendered preview.
• We added the option Text Editor > Display > Check Spelling for comments and text files (uses OS functionality on macOS and Windows, requires the enchant-2 library on Linux).
• Git merge conflict markers are now nicely marked in the text editor with the option to choose the current version, the incoming version, or both.
• C++ support received various fixes as usual, as well as an update to LLVM 23.1.1
• The qmlls is now used by default for QML files.
• The diff view for single files is now editable inline.
• FakeVim received many many fixes as well as support for various Vim functionality including a large subset of Vimscript and plugins.

Projects

• You can now create a Workspace project from an executable that is open in an editor, to easily run and debug that executable.
• We updated our CMake parser to version 4.2.
• The cm Locator filter can now be used to run arbitrary CMake commands.
• We added a built-in indenter for CMake files that can be used instead of cmake-format, and the CMake editor now supports the Outline view and dropdown.
• CMake Presets got runSettings and runDevice vendor extensions for Qt Creator, and received many fixes as well.

Debugging & Profiling

• We added the experimental option to use a combined engine for debugging C++ and QML that enables combined stack traces. Choose that option in the Debug setting of run configurations.
• We worked on new, modular and better testable debugger backends. Test them out by turning on Preferences > Debugger > General > Use the new debugger backends (experimental).
• The new Profile mode integrates the new Qt Profiler tool that replaces the QML Profiler and adds support for a Call-Stack Sampler on Windows and macOS as well as for Qt Tracepoints.

Version Control

• We added a Changes navigation view that shows changed files and provides various actions on these.
• We added the Git Log navigation view that shows the git log graph including the stats for the file changes.
• Commit messages are now checked with the spell checker.

Devices

• We added experimental support for HarmonyOS (documentation).
• We fixed issues with running on iOS devices with Xcode 27.
• We added experimental support for remote Windows devices (over SSH).
• Android support got a new Logcat view (Tools > Android > Logcat).
• We added support for containers managed with Podman.

Get Qt Creator 21 Beta

The new version is available under Preview > Qt Creator 21.0.0-beta1 in the Qt Online Installer (commercial, opensource). You also find commercially licensed offline installers on the Qt Account Portal, and opensource packages on our opensource download page under Pre-releases. As always, the new version is a free upgrade for all users.

Please post issues in our bug tracker. You can also find us on IRC on #qt-creator on irc.libera.chat, and on the Qt Creator mailing list.

You can read the Qt Creator Manual in Qt Creator in the Help mode or access it online in the Qt documentation portal.