Out-of-your-face AI

A few weeks ago, we released Edit Prediction, Zed's native prediction mechanism, powered by Zeta, our new open source, open data model.

Lots of people love it as-is, but a common piece of feedback has been that predicted text appearing as you type can feel distracting—or even "too in-your-face."

We heard that feedback, and have just introduced subtle mode—which makes predicted text hidden by default, and only visible when you're holding a modifier key. That keeps it out-of-your-face, but easily accessible at a moment's notice.

Let me walk you through it!

Setting up

First, before turning this mode on, make sure you have Edit Prediction properly configured.

Then, to turn subtle mode on, do it by either manually adding this to your settings:

"edit_predictions": {
  "mode": "subtle"
},

Or, if you are in Zed Preview v0.179.x, directly from the UI (via the status bar menu):

Using subtle mode

The idea behind subtle mode is that not a single AI edit prediction will appear without you requesting it. But then you ask: "how do I know if there are any?".

In subtle mode, whenever Zeta comes up with a prediction, the UI tells you that via this neat little box that appears right below your cursor. On it, you can see two things:

1. the Zeta icon followed by an arrow, indicating the direction of the prediction (whether it is above or below your cursor)
2. the icon for the modifier key you need to hold in order to see the prediction

Then, upon holding alt/option (the default modifier on macOS), you will see a little flag indicating precisely where in the buffer the prediction is.

After that, hitting tab once allows you to see what Zeta is actually suggesting and then hitting tab again will accept the prediction. All of this while preserving your cursor position and interactions (like pressing the left or right keys).

We intentionally chose this keybinding for this interaction because it's already the one we use in Edit Prediction's default mode when tab is bound to something else (like accepting a language server completion or just increasing indentation).

I find this to be super sweet as it ends up creating a smooth flow of holding the modifier to preview the location, tab to preview, and tab to accept. Before you see it, you're tab, tab, tabbing your way through AI predictions again!

Wrap up

With Zed, we want to offer you chances to try AI-assisted coding capabilities, but without breaking the editor groove you're already used to. I personally believe Edit Prediction's subtle mode fits perfectly in that spot—it's minimal, elegant, and helpful.

Give it a spin & let us know what you think! Happy coding. :)