Completions

Zed supports two sources for completions:

"Code Completions" provided by Language Servers (LSPs) automatically installed by Zed or via Zed Language Extensions.
"Edit Predictions" provided by Zed's own Zeta model or by external providers like GitHub Copilot or Supermaven.

Language Server Code Completions

When there is an appropriate language server available, Zed will provide completions of variable names, functions, and other symbols in the current file. You can disable these by adding the following to your Zed settings.json file:

"show_completions_on_input": false

You can manually trigger completions with ctrl-space or by triggering the editor::ShowCompletions action from the command palette.

For more information, see:

Edit Predictions

Zed has built-in support for predicting multiple edits at a time via Zeta, Zed's open-source and open-data model. Edit predictions appear as you type, and most of the time, you can accept them by pressing tab.

Configuring Zeta

Zed's Edit Prediction was initially introduced via a banner on the title bar. Clicking on it would take you to a modal with a button ("Enable Edit Prediction") that sets zed as your edit_prediction_provider.

Onboarding banner and modal

But, if you haven't come across the banner, Zed's Edit Prediction is the default edit prediction provider and you should see it right away in your status bar.

Switching Modes

Zed's Edit Prediction comes with two different display modes:

eager (default): predictions are displayed inline as long as it doesn't conflict with language server completions
subtle: predictions only appear inline when holding a modifier key (alt by default)

Toggle between them via the mode key:

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

Or directly via the UI through the status bar menu:

Conflict With Other `tab` Actions

By default, when tab would normally perform a different action, Zed requires a modifier key to accept predictions:

When the language server completions menu is visible.
When your cursor isn't at the right indentation level.

In these cases, alt-tab is used instead to accept the prediction. When the language server completions menu is open, holding alt first will cause it to temporarily disappear in order to preview the prediction within the buffer.

On Linux, alt-tab is often used by the window manager for switching windows, so alt-l is provided as the default binding for accepting predictions. tab and alt-tab also work, but aren't displayed by default.

editor: accept partial edit prediction (ctrl-cmd-right|alt-right) can be used to accept the current edit prediction up to the next word boundary.

See the Configuring GitHub Copilot and Configuring Supermaven sections below for configuration of other providers. Only text insertions at the current cursor are supported for these providers, whereas the Zeta model provides multiple predictions including deletions.

Configuring Edit Prediction Keybindings

By default, tab is used to accept edit predictions. You can use another keybinding by inserting this in your keymap:

{
  "context": "Editor && edit_prediction",
  "bindings": {
    // Here we also allow `alt-enter` to accept the prediction
    "alt-enter": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction"
  }
}

When there's a conflict with the tab key, Zed uses a different context to accept keybindings (edit_prediction_conflict). If you want to use a different one, you can insert this in your keymap:

{
  "context": "Editor && edit_prediction_conflict",
  "bindings": {
    "ctrl-enter": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction" // Example of a modified keybinding
  }
}

If your keybinding contains a modifier (ctrl in the example above), it will also be used to preview the edit prediction and temporarily hide the language server completion menu.

You can also bind this action to keybind without a modifier. In that case, Zed will use the default modifier (alt) to preview the edit prediction.

{
  "context": "Editor && edit_prediction_conflict",
  "bindings": {
    // Here we bind tab to accept even when there's a language server completion
    // or the cursor isn't at the correct indentation level
    "tab": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction"
  }
}

To maintain the use of the modifier key for accepting predictions when there is a language server completions menu, but allow tab to accept predictions regardless of cursor position, you can specify the context further with showing_completions:

{
  "context": "Editor && edit_prediction_conflict && !showing_completions",
  "bindings": {
    // Here we don't require a modifier unless there's a language server completion
    "tab": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction"
  }
}

Keybinding Example: Always Use Alt-Tab

The keybinding example below causes alt-tab to always be used instead of sometimes using tab. You might want this in order to have just one keybinding to use for accepting edit predictions, since the behavior of tab varies based on context.

  {
    "context": "Editor && edit_prediction",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-tab": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction"
    }
  },
  // Bind `tab` back to its original behavior.
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "tab": "editor::Tab"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Editor && showing_completions",
    "bindings": {
      "tab": "editor::ComposeCompletion"
    }
  },

If "vim_mode": true is set within settings.json, then additional bindings are needed after the above to return tab to its original behavior:

  {
    "context": "(VimControl && !menu) || vim_mode == replace || vim_mode == waiting",
    "bindings": {
      "tab": "vim::Tab"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "vim_mode == literal",
    "bindings": {
      "tab": ["vim::Literal", ["tab", "\u0009"]]
    }
  },

Keybinding Example: Displaying Tab and Alt-Tab on Linux

While tab and alt-tab are supported on Linux, alt-l is displayed instead. If your window manager does not reserve alt-tab, and you would prefer to use tab and alt-tab, include these bindings in keymap.json:

  {
    "context": "Editor && edit_prediction",
    "bindings": {
      "tab": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction",
      // Optional: This makes the default `alt-l` binding do nothing.
      "alt-l": null
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Editor && edit_prediction_conflict",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-tab": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction",
      // Optional: This makes the default `alt-l` binding do nothing.
      "alt-l": null
    }
  },

Missing keybind

Zed requires at least one keybinding for the editor: accept edit prediction action in both the Editor && edit_prediction and Editor && edit_prediction_conflict contexts (learn more above).

If you have previously bound the default keybindings to different actions in the global context, you will not be able to preview or accept edit predictions. For example:

[
  // Your keymap
  {
    "bindings": {
      // Binds `alt-tab` to a different action globally
      "alt-tab": "menu::SelectNext"
    }
  }
]

To fix this, you can specify your own keybinding for accepting edit predictions:

[
  // ...
  {
    "context": "Editor && edit_prediction_conflict",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-l": "editor::AcceptEditPrediction"
    }
  }
]

If you would like to use the default keybinding, you can free it up by either moving yours to a more specific context or changing it to something else.

Disabling Automatic Edit Prediction

There are different levels in which you can disable edit predictions to be displayed, including not having it turned on at all.

Alternatively, if you have Zed set as your provider, consider using Subtle Mode.

On Buffers

To not have predictions appear automatically as you type, set this within settings.json:

{
  "show_edit_predictions": false
}

This hides every indication that there is a prediction available, regardless of the display mode you're in (valid only if you have Zed as your provider). Still, you can trigger edit predictions manually by executing editor: show edit prediction or hitting alt-tab|alt-</kbd>.

For Specific Languages

To not have predictions appear automatically as you type when working with a specific language, set this within settings.json:

{
  "language": {
    "python": {
      "show_edit_predictions": false
    }
  }
}

Turning Off Completely

To completely turn off edit prediction across all providers, explicitly set the settings to none, like so:

"features": {
  "edit_prediction_provider": "none"
},

Configuring GitHub Copilot

To use GitHub Copilot as your provider, set this within settings.json:

{
  "features": {
    "edit_prediction_provider": "copilot"
  }
}

You should be able to sign-in to GitHub Copilot by clicking on the Copilot icon in the status bar and following the setup instructions.

Copilot can provide multiple completion alternatives, and these can be navigated with the following actions:

editor: next edit prediction (alt-tab|alt-]): To cycle to the next edit prediction
editor: previous edit prediction (alt-shift-tab|alt-[): To cycle to the previous edit prediction

Configuring Supermaven

To use Supermaven as your provider, set this within settings.json:

{
  "features": {
    "edit_prediction_provider": "supermaven"
  }
}

You should be able to sign-in to Supermaven by clicking on the Supermaven icon in the status bar and following the setup instructions.