Zed AI

Zed AI is a fast code editor built with AI to help you code better and faster. It uses advanced AI to understand what you need, letting you change code by typing simple instructions. It includes helpful tools like a visible AI assistant and quick shortcuts for tasks. A special fast mode, powered by Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can quickly update your code. Zed AI works on Mac and Linux now, with a Windows version coming later, aiming to make coding with AI smooth and quick.

Key Features:

• Assistant Panel: A transparent text editor interface for interacting with the AI, showing code snippets, conversation history, and file contents.
• Slash Commands: Used to easily add context and information into the assistant panel.
• Inline Transformations: Allows modifying and generating code directly within the editor using natural language prompts.
• Workflow Command: Directs the AI model to produce a series of steps that Zed can interpret and act upon.
• Project Command: Helps in quickly finding and inserting relevant information from your project into the assistant panel.

Who is Using Zed AI?

• Students and Beginners: Zed AI’s simple design and interactive features help learners code better with instant feedback and AI-guided debugging.
• Remote Development Teams: Zed AI’s real-time editing and shared workspaces help distributed teams work together smoothly, connecting people across locations for efficient coding.
• Solo Developers and Freelancers: Individual coders use Zed AI’s AI-powered tools to fix old code, reduce errors, and improve code quality with less manual work.
• AI Researchers: Zed AI supports those exploring large language models with flexible commands and multiple AI providers, letting researchers customize data and interactions.
• Anthropic Engineers: Developers at Anthropic, especially those using Rust, choose Zed AI for its clear, text-focused interface. They contribute to its open-source code, improving the tool’s features.

What makes Zed AI Unique?

• Text-Centric Interface: Zed AI offers a raw, text-centric interface that minimizes the separation between the user and the language model.
• Assistant Panel: It features a full-fledged text editor that exposes the entire LLM request, allowing users to observe, edit, and refine any part of the request using familiar coding tools.
• Slash Commands: Zed AI utilizes slash commands to populate the text-based context, enabling users to insert content from open tabs, specific files, terminal output, and more. These slash commands are extensible.
• Inline Transformations: Zed AI allows users to transform and generate code via natural language prompts, with a custom streaming diff protocol that delivers edits as soon as they’re streamed from the model.
• Transparency and Control: Zed AI lets you see exactly what the AI is using to give answers, and you can easily change or adjust that information. It also gives you tools to quickly add the right details so the AI works better for you.

How we rated it:

• Overall: 4.6/5
• Pricing: 4.8/5
• Features: 4.5/5
• Ease of use: 4.2/5
• Value for money: 4.9/5
• Customer support: 4.0/5