Zed Editor Config

Zed is a GPU-accelerated editor written in Rust by ex-Atom maintainers, with collaborative editing and an AI assistant baked into the editor process. The pitch is "VS Code but native, fast, and AI-aware out of the box." After two years using it as a daily driver, the pitch holds up — the editor opens in 80ms, types at 120fps, and the Assistant panel makes the AI workflow feel less like context-switching than any other tool.

This entry is the settings file. Zed reads JSON from ~/.config/zed/settings.json (~/Library/Application Support/Zed/settings.json on older versions — the XDG path is preferred and Zed will follow either). Per-project overrides live at .zed/settings.json in the project root and inherit from the global file.

#// Where the Settings Live

The global file is read on Zed startup; changes don't require a restart, the settings reload live. The project-level file overlays the global one — useful for per-repo tab width, per-repo linter wiring, or per-repo Assistant context rules.

{
  "telemetry": {
    "diagnostics": false,
    "metrics": false
  },
  "buffer_font_family": "JetBrains Mono",
  "buffer_font_size": 14,
  "theme": {
    "mode": "system",
    "light": "One Light",
    "dark": "One Dark"
  }
}

theme.mode: "system" follows the macOS appearance toggle; the light and dark keys pick the variant for each. The default One themes are good — there's no reason to install a theme extension unless the color choice is itself a value.

#// Vim Mode and the Keybinding Philosophy

Zed ships with a Vim mode that handles motion, operators, registers, and the most-used Ex commands — not a partial reimplementation, an actual usable Vim. Turn it on with one setting:

{
  "vim_mode": true,
  "cursor_blink": false,
  "relative_line_numbers": true,
  "soft_wrap": "editor_width"
}

relative_line_numbers: true is the single biggest motion win — 7j and 12k become eyeball-able instead of "do mental arithmetic on absolute line numbers." cursor_blink: false is taste; the blinking cursor is the single most distracting thing in a focused-editing session and disabling it has been an unmitigated upgrade.

#// The Assistant Panel

Zed's Assistant panel is the AI integration. It's a dedicated panel (⌘? to toggle) that holds a conversation thread with context-awareness about the open files. Two settings shape how it behaves:

{
  "assistant": {
    "version": "2",
    "enabled": true,
    "default_model": {
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5"
    },
    "button": true,
    "dock": "right",
    "default_width": 480
  }
}

The model provider can be Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or a locally-hosted Ollama instance — set provider and Zed reads the corresponding ANTHROPIC_API_KEY / OPENAI_API_KEY from your shell environment. For Ollama, point api_url at the local server and pick a model.

The killer feature is inline assists. With the cursor on a line (or a visual selection), ⌘⏎ opens a small floating prompt at the cursor — "rewrite this function to use async/await," "add JSDoc," "explain what this regex does." The diff appears inline; accept or reject with ⌘⏎ / ⎋. No context switch, no clipboard, no chat window losing track of which file you were editing.

#// Language and Formatter Wiring

Zed picks up prettier, eslint, rustfmt, gofmt, and the rest from the project — no per-language plugin install. The settings just tell it which one to run on save:

{
  "format_on_save": "on",
  "formatter": "language_server",
  "languages": {
    "TypeScript": {
      "formatter": { "external": { "command": "prettier", "arguments": ["--stdin-filepath", "{buffer_path}"] } },
      "tab_size": 2
    },
    "Rust": {
      "tab_size": 4
    }
  }
}

formatter: "language_server" is the default — uses the LSP's own format-on-save. Override per-language for TypeScript because the typescript-language-server's formatter is worse than running Prettier directly. The {buffer_path} token lets Prettier resolve the right config based on the file's location.

#// Per-Project Settings

A .zed/settings.json at the repo root overlays the global config. Useful for repos with non-standard tab width, lint configs, or for scoping the Assistant to a specific model:

{
  "tab_size": 4,
  "languages": {
    "Python": {
      "formatter": { "external": { "command": "ruff", "arguments": ["format", "-"] } }
    }
  }
}

Commit this file. Every collaborator gets the same editor behavior without anyone touching their global config — which is the whole point.

#// Switching from VS Code

The migration path is about three hours of friction. Zed's command palette has a "Import VS Code settings" command that converts keybindings and a subset of editor settings; the rest is hunting through Zed's settings docs for the equivalent of whatever you'd customized. The settings file above is what mine collapsed to after the dust settled — small, opinionated, and stable across major Zed versions.