Configuring the Assistant

Providers

The following providers are supported:

• Zed AI (Configured by default when signed in)
• Anthropic
• GitHub Copilot Chat ¹
• Google AI ¹
• Ollama
• OpenAI

To configure different providers, run assistant: show configuration in the command palette, or click on the hamburger menu at the top-right of the assistant panel and select "Configure".

To further customize providers, you can use settings.json to do that as follows:

• Configuring endpoints
• Configuring timeouts
• Configuring default model

Zed AI

A hosted service providing convenient and performant support for AI-enabled coding in Zed, powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and accessible just by signing in.

Anthropic

You can use Claude 3.5 Sonnet via Zed AI for free. To use other Anthropic models you will need to configure it by providing your own API key.

1. Sign up for Anthropic and create an API key
2. Make sure that your Anthropic account has credits
3. Open the configuration view (assistant: show configuration) and navigate to the Anthropic section
4. Enter your Anthropic API key

Even if you pay for Claude Pro, you will still have to pay for additional credits to use it via the API.

Zed will also use the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable if it's defined.

Anthropic Custom Models

You can add custom models to the Anthropic provider by adding the following to your Zed settings.json:

{
  "language_models": {
    "anthropic": {
      "available_models": [
        {
          "name": "some-model",
          "display_name": "some-model",
          "max_tokens": 128000,
          "max_output_tokens": 2560,
          "cache_configuration": {
            "max_cache_anchors": 10,
            "min_total_token": 10000,
            "should_speculate": false
          },
          "tool_override": "some-model-that-supports-toolcalling"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Custom models will be listed in the model dropdown in the assistant panel.

GitHub Copilot Chat

You can use GitHub Copilot chat with the Zed assistant by choosing it via the model dropdown in the assistant panel.

Google AI

You can use Gemini 1.5 Pro/Flash with the Zed assistant by choosing it via the model dropdown in the assistant panel.

1. Go the Google AI Studio site and create an API key.
2. Open the configuration view (assistant: show configuration) and navigate to the Google AI section
3. Enter your Google AI API key

The Google AI API key will be saved in your keychain.

Zed will also use the GOOGLE_AI_API_KEY environment variable if it's defined.

Google AI custom models

You can add custom models to the Google AI provider by adding the following to your Zed settings.json:

{
  "language_models": {
    "google": {
      "available_models": [
        {
          "name": "custom-model",
          "max_tokens": 128000
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Custom models will be listed in the model dropdown in the assistant panel.

Ollama

Download and install Ollama from ollama.com/download (Linux or macOS) and ensure it's running with ollama --version.

1. Download one of the available models, for example, for mistral:

   ollama pull mistral
   

2. Make sure that the Ollama server is running. You can start it either via running Ollama.app (MacOS) or launching:

   ollama serve
   

3. In the assistant panel, select one of the Ollama models using the model dropdown.

4. (Optional) Specify a custom api_url or custom low_speed_timeout_in_seconds if required.

Ollama Context Length

Zed has pre-configured maximum context lengths (max_tokens) to match the capabilities of common models. Zed API requests to Ollama include this as num_ctx parameter, but the default values do not exceed 16384 so users with ~16GB of ram are able to use most models out of the box. See get_max_tokens in ollama.rs for a complete set of defaults.

Note: Tokens counts displayed in the assistant panel are only estimates and will differ from the models native tokenizer.

Depending on your hardware or use-case you may wish to limit or increase the context length for a specific model via settings.json:

{
  "language_models": {
    "ollama": {
      "low_speed_timeout_in_seconds": 120,
      "available_models": [
        {
          "provider": "ollama",
          "name": "mistral:latest",
          "max_tokens": 32768
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

If you specify a context length that is too large for your hardware, Ollama will log an error. You can watch these logs by running: tail -f ~/.ollama/logs/ollama.log (MacOS) or journalctl -u ollama -f (Linux). Depending on the memory available on your machine, you may need to adjust the context length to a smaller value.

OpenAI

1. Visit the OpenAI platform and create an API key
2. Make sure that your OpenAI account has credits
3. Open the configuration view (assistant: show configuration) and navigate to the OpenAI section
4. Enter your OpenAI API key

The OpenAI API key will be saved in your keychain.

Zed will also use the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable if it's defined.

OpenAI Custom Models

You can add custom models to the OpenAI provider, by adding the following to your Zed settings.json:

{
  "language_models": {
    "openai": {
      "version": "1",
      "available_models": [
        {
          "name": "custom-model",
          "max_tokens": 128000
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Custom models will be listed in the model dropdown in the assistant panel.

Advanced configuration

Example Configuration

{
  "assistant": {
    "enabled": true,
    "default_model": {
      "provider": "zed.dev",
      "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet"
    },
    "version": "2",
    "button": true,
    "default_width": 480,
    "dock": "right"
  }
}

Custom endpoints

You can use a custom API endpoint for different providers, as long as it's compatible with the providers API structure.

To do so, add the following to your Zed settings.json:

{
  "language_models": {
    "some-provider": {
      "api_url": "http://localhost:11434"
    }
  }
}

Where some-provider can be any of the following values: anthropic, google, ollama, openai.

Custom timeout

You can customize the timeout that's used for LLM requests, by adding the following to your Zed settings.json:

{
  "language_models": {
    "some-provider": {
      "low_speed_timeout_in_seconds": 10
    }
  }
}

Where some-provider can be any of the following values: anthropic, copilot_chat, google, ollama, openai.

Configuring the default model

The default model can be set via the model dropdown in the assistant panel's top-right corner. Selecting a model saves it as the default. You can also manually edit the default_model object in your settings:

{
  "assistant": {
    "version": "2",
    "default_model": {
      "provider": "zed.dev",
      "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet"
    }
  }
}

Common Panel Settings