It's pretty clear by this point that everyone is going towards parallel agents and worktrees, but TBH I am surprised to see an offering from Zed, seeing how heavy they lean into being editor-heavy and having AI features be strictly optional.
The key advantages Zed has are being agent-agnostic (so not a first party UI like Claude/Codex/Cursor Desktop), supporting multiple repositories on the same agent via creating a worktree for each automatically, and having a high quality custom agent UI rather than wrapping over CLIs (I've used their IDE's agent UI in the past and it's great). AFAIK, this is the first mainstream tool that supports all of these features.
I'm having a hard time adjusting to the Project Panel on the right (and, at least for me, hidden by default) - seems like they're trying to bury the concept of a 'file'?
It's certainly interesting though, and I'll give it some time - the post says "It feels more natural once you've spent a little time with it"
I think it's more that you don't need to look at the actual tree structure all that often, especially when most codebases follow logical and conventionalised structures you remember these structures and can use Command-P to search for files individually to open and the tree structure becomes something you peek at infrequently to ensure that everything is going in it's right place.
Warp launched something similar a week or so ago, but the Zed implementation I find a lot more logical. Will give Zed another try, as I’m overdue for my monthly “maybe I should try this terminal/IDE” itch.
I'm buying into this workflow more the more I use it, but the real gamechanger is (a) parallel threads in worktrees, with (b) enough lifecycle hooks to treat them similarly to spinning up a VM.
Specifically for me that means that after I create a worktree I get some local config files copied over and Postgres duplicating my local dev and test databases so I can test in isolation, and then when I close out a worktree it deletes those databases.
The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend. Arbor is close, but it's not under as active development and has a lot of rough edges. Opencode GUI has create hooks but not teardown.
If Zed can hook that up _and_ also keep its great editor roots, that'll definitely be a game changer.
This is helpful to know - we're working on adding more agents, Copilot and OpenCode harnesses are among the most popular requests.
We also recently built an escape hatch. If you turn on Settings → Experimental → Big Terminal Mode you can create new terminals in the center panel (with ⌘⇧T) and use any agent you'd like (Copilot, OpenCode, etc). It isn't the best experience because you don't get notifications etc (yet), but at least it lets you use the harness you'd like until we build out the first-class UI for it.
Send me feedback anytime, I'm charlie@conductor.build.
Conductor is really nice!
A feature I would really like would be to be able to automatically configure “direnv allow” in the different shells as I use nix & direnv all the time
In VSCode, I use https://github.com/jackiotyu/git-worktree-manager for the same purpose - the extension has before create/before destroy WT hooks which you can run anything from. Mine symlinks workspace file from main checkout, installs packages and copies over some files. Very handy.
Unless I misunderstand something but why not just roll a couple of helper shell scripts that create a new git worktree for you, copy over a local .env file (or any other config file) and populate it with ports/variables that are unique across all worktrees (to avoid collisions if you're on localhost, but you could also do this with Docker) and a helper script for tearing down a worktree after you've merged the changes back into main. I'm even supplying unique chrome debug ports and unique temp user data dirs for isolated automated testing in chrome via chrome devtools mcp. Like, I'm not sure why an external library/tool is needed for this.
It will also pull more users in. I don't want to be looking at code. I want more of a codex style app where it's easy to shove all my projects in one place and context switch endlessly.
Yeah, we are getting to the point where you having a 4K monitor for your editor becomes a requirement rather than a "nice to have". Until now you have the agent, the editor and files/git/whatever, if you add a fourth panel to that, it becomes pretty cramped at lower resolutions. Fortunately, I do have a 4K monitor, but until now I used to have the editor on one half of it and another window (a browser most of the time) on the other half. So having to use the editor full screen is still slightly annoying.
Of course, that's only the default layout. I'm not familiar enough with Zed, but there's probably a way to change it? In JetBrains IDEs, you can configure panels to sit at the top left/bottom left/left bottom/right bottom/bottom right/top right side and show/hide them with one click (if only one panel on the respective side is shown, it will take up the full space). So you could have files at the top left and the agent panel at the bottom left. And the code editor is of course still the "centerpiece" in the middle.
I liked the idea of the new layout with the agent thread on the left, it goes hand-in-hand with having multiple threads that are easy to switch between and running concurrently, but I switched back because my file tree disappeared and I couldn't easily see how to add it back
Love your editor again
Zed is a minimal code editor crafted for speed and collaboration with humans and AI.
At home, I don't use any AI when coding, to keep my brain sharp. But it's clear that Zed's focus is on AI integration because that's where the money's going (seriously, where is the setting to have a different ui icon size vs ui font size). Is there any editor still being being developed and focusing on the experience of coding by hand?
What I want is a stateful file-writing layer that is aware of all clients (aka agents and humans) and their activity. It provides its own locking mechanisms, and prevents agents from overwriting each others work. That way you could have multiple agents operating on the same codebase, without having to futz with worktrees and all that.
I loved zed for over 1 year, told for everybody to use it, because it was so fast and great.
But now using claude-code,gemini-cli,codex,etc it just seems less relevant. Just opened nvim with lazyvim and it feels nice, since I'm in terminal anyway it just feels more natural.
Still have zed opened, still like it but I guess honeymoon is over.
I've used Zed since the very beginning and I remain a fan. Its LLM integration so far has been a lot more pleasant than what I see in others and the editor is perfectly usable without using LLMs.
Its multi buffer and speed sound trivial but using anything else feels wrong now.
Is this any different from a setup where I use a terminal with tabs and splits, running my favorite editor in one or more panes, and several agents (Claude Code and Codex) in several other panes and tabs?
Edit: Although I can integrate an agent in NeoVim, I don’t do it. I want to use my editor solely for that purpose, while the rest (versioning, agentic coding, git client, etc.) is done in the terminal. My NeoVim setup is simple and fast, which is why I prefer it over any other IDE or editor. Especially with the native package manager in the latest version. I also replaced BBEdit by installing Neovide, a GUI version of NeoVim. It starts in a split second and is incredibly smooth and fast. And it’s so enjoyable to work with that I use it as my preferred frontend to Obsidian.
Zed is probably the best text editor in the last 10 years. It has quirks, but it is insanely powerful and capable out of the box. I don't even bother trying to setup Neovim because of Zed. They let people for PRs for missing vim features for their vim emulation, and its insanely capable.
I hope someday they get the funding they deserve, because it has insane potential. It's why I subscribe to their pay plan, even if I dont use it all the time, I want them to succeed.
I give them props for writing a truly responsive editor that's easy to use, and can switch to keybinding sets from other editors. (So you don't have to learn new ones) And I find it works more naturally for multi-file projects than VsCode, and Sublime.
In terms of in-line instantaneous error highlighting, introspection, refactoring, and autocomplete, it's not on the same level as JetBrains.
I really want to like Zed, but for some reason the way it interfaces with the TypeScript language server is dog slow compared to VS Code and its derivatives.
I would love to unleash parallel agents, but I am still checking every single edit while enforcing minimal, stateless, modular code, and I have the AI check in with me before writing the next file.
A lot of times, I find it has incredibly stupid ideas and tends to make the code very messy. I would love to figure out how to stop that from happening automatically.
The upside of checking in on the code, though, is that I can come up with smart directions for the AI from both a product and tech perspective. This is especially helpful when the dumb suggestions add a lot of complexity.
I think it's like when a product person asks for a new feature, or when a founder building their own product selects which feature is smarter to build and how.
I like Zed but the defaults for tabs (CTRL+Tab and CTRL+Shift+Tab step you through some diabolical tab selector in what is allegedly (but not really) recency order instead of just left/right. It really made me question their sanity.
64 comments
[ 40.8 ms ] story [ 2756 ms ] threadThe key advantages Zed has are being agent-agnostic (so not a first party UI like Claude/Codex/Cursor Desktop), supporting multiple repositories on the same agent via creating a worktree for each automatically, and having a high quality custom agent UI rather than wrapping over CLIs (I've used their IDE's agent UI in the past and it's great). AFAIK, this is the first mainstream tool that supports all of these features.
It's certainly interesting though, and I'll give it some time - the post says "It feels more natural once you've spent a little time with it"
Specifically for me that means that after I create a worktree I get some local config files copied over and Postgres duplicating my local dev and test databases so I can test in isolation, and then when I close out a worktree it deletes those databases.
The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend. Arbor is close, but it's not under as active development and has a lot of rough edges. Opencode GUI has create hooks but not teardown.
If Zed can hook that up _and_ also keep its great editor roots, that'll definitely be a game changer.
This is helpful to know - we're working on adding more agents, Copilot and OpenCode harnesses are among the most popular requests.
We also recently built an escape hatch. If you turn on Settings → Experimental → Big Terminal Mode you can create new terminals in the center panel (with ⌘⇧T) and use any agent you'd like (Copilot, OpenCode, etc). It isn't the best experience because you don't get notifications etc (yet), but at least it lets you use the harness you'd like until we build out the first-class UI for it.
Send me feedback anytime, I'm charlie@conductor.build.
I really like Zed, I use it every day. But, if I'd seen this layout when I first installed, I never would have taken it seriously
I imagine this will push some new users away
Turning Zed into Codex alienates the existing user base who installed Zed because it's a code editor. If I wanted Codex I would have installed Codex.
Of course, that's only the default layout. I'm not familiar enough with Zed, but there's probably a way to change it? In JetBrains IDEs, you can configure panels to sit at the top left/bottom left/left bottom/right bottom/bottom right/top right side and show/hide them with one click (if only one panel on the respective side is shown, it will take up the full space). So you could have files at the top left and the agent panel at the bottom left. And the code editor is of course still the "centerpiece" in the middle.
lobster thread: https://lobste.rs/s/yyqowj/gram_zed_fork_without_all_ai if you want Zed without AI
But now using claude-code,gemini-cli,codex,etc it just seems less relevant. Just opened nvim with lazyvim and it feels nice, since I'm in terminal anyway it just feels more natural.
Still have zed opened, still like it but I guess honeymoon is over.
Its multi buffer and speed sound trivial but using anything else feels wrong now.
Edit: Although I can integrate an agent in NeoVim, I don’t do it. I want to use my editor solely for that purpose, while the rest (versioning, agentic coding, git client, etc.) is done in the terminal. My NeoVim setup is simple and fast, which is why I prefer it over any other IDE or editor. Especially with the native package manager in the latest version. I also replaced BBEdit by installing Neovide, a GUI version of NeoVim. It starts in a split second and is incredibly smooth and fast. And it’s so enjoyable to work with that I use it as my preferred frontend to Obsidian.
I hope someday they get the funding they deserve, because it has insane potential. It's why I subscribe to their pay plan, even if I dont use it all the time, I want them to succeed.
In terms of in-line instantaneous error highlighting, introspection, refactoring, and autocomplete, it's not on the same level as JetBrains.
A lot of times, I find it has incredibly stupid ideas and tends to make the code very messy. I would love to figure out how to stop that from happening automatically.
The upside of checking in on the code, though, is that I can come up with smart directions for the AI from both a product and tech perspective. This is especially helpful when the dumb suggestions add a lot of complexity.
I think it's like when a product person asks for a new feature, or when a founder building their own product selects which feature is smarter to build and how.