Developing Zed

Repository

After cloning the repository, ensure all git submodules are initialized:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Dependencies

  • Install Rust

  • Install Xcode from the macOS App Store

  • Install Xcode command line tools

    xcode-select --install
  • Ensure that the Xcode command line tools are using your newly installed copy of Xcode:

    sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
    
  • Install the Rust wasm toolchain:

    rustup target add wasm32-wasi

Backend Dependencies

If you are developing collaborative features of Zed, you'll need to install the dependencies of zed's collab server:

Building Zed from Source

Once you have the dependencies installed, you can build Zed using Cargo.

For a debug build:

cargo run

For a release build:

cargo run --release

And to run the tests:

cargo test --workspace

Troubleshooting

Error compiling metal shaders

error: failed to run custom build command for gpui v0.1.0 (/Users/path/to/zed)`**

xcrun: error: unable to find utility "metal", not a developer tool or in PATH

Try xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Cargo errors claiming that a dependency is using unstable features

Try cargo clean and cargo build.