Agent Profiles

Agent profiles control how the Zed Agent behaves in a thread. A profile can set a default model and choose which built-in tools and MCP tools are available.

Profiles do not decide whether a tool call is allowed automatically. Use Tool Permissions to control allow, deny, and confirm behavior.

Built-in Profiles

Zed includes three built-in profiles:

• Write: enables tools for reading, editing, and running commands.
• Ask: focuses on read-only codebase questions.
• Minimal: uses no project tools.

Configure Profiles

Open the profile selector in the Agent Panel, then click Configure.

You can also run agent: manage profiles from the command palette.

From the profile modal, you can:

• create a custom profile
• fork an existing profile
• configure a profile default model
• configure built-in tools
• configure MCP tools
• delete custom profiles

Profiles and Settings

Profiles are stored under agent.profiles in your settings.

{
  "agent": {
    "profiles": {
      "ask": {
        "name": "Ask",
        "tools": {
          "read_file": true,
          "grep": true,
          "terminal": false,
          "edit_file": false
        },
        "enable_all_context_servers": false,
        "context_servers": {},
        "default_model": {
          "provider": "zed.dev",
          "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The exact model IDs and provider IDs depend on your configured LLM Providers.

Profiles vs. Tool Permissions

If a tool is not available in the active profile, the Zed Agent cannot use it. If the tool is available and permission-gated, Tool Permissions still controls whether the tool call requires approval.

Agent Path Boundaries

Agent profiles apply to the Zed Agent. External Agents and Terminal Threads do not use Zed Agent profiles unless their integration explicitly supports similar behavior.