Key bindings

Zed has a very customizable key binding system — you can tweak everything to work exactly how your fingers expect!

Predefined keymaps

If you're used to a specific editor's defaults you can set a base_keymap in your settings file. We currently have:

  • VSCode (default)
  • Atom
  • JetBrains
  • SublimeText
  • TextMate
  • None (disables all key bindings)

You can also enable vim_mode, which adds vim bindings too.

User keymaps

Zed reads your keymap from ~/.zed/keymap.json on MacOS (or ~/.config/zed/keymap.json on Linux). You can open the file within Zed with cmd-k cmd-s|ctrl-k ctrl-s, or via zed: Open Keymap in the command palette.

The file contains a JSON array of objects with "bindings". If no "context" is set the bindings are always active. If it is set the binding is only active when the context matches.

Within each binding section a key sequence is mapped to an action. If conflicts are detected they are resolved as described below.

If you are using a non-QWERTY, Latin-character keyboard, you may want to set use_layout_keys to true. See Non-QWERTY keyboards for more information.

For example:

[
  {
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-right": "editor::SelectLargerSyntaxNode",
      "ctrl-left": "editor::SelectSmallerSyntaxNode"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "ProjectPanel && not_editing",
    "bindings": {
      "o": "project_panel::Open"
    }
  }
]

You can see all of Zeds default bindings in the default keymaps for MacOS or Linux.

If you want to debug problems with custom keymaps you can use debug: Open Key Context View from the command palette. Please file an issue if you run into something you think should work but isn't.

Keybinding syntax

Zed has the ability to match against not just a single keypress, but a sequence of keys typed in order. Each key in the "bindings" map is a sequence of keypresses separated with a space.

Each key press is a sequence of modifiers followed by a key. The modifiers are:

  • ctrl- The control key
  • cmd-, win- or super- for the platform modifier (Command on macOS, Windows key on Windows, and the Super key on Linux).
  • alt- for alt (option on macOS)
  • shift- The shift key
  • fn- The function key

The keys can be any single unicode codepoint that your keyboard generates (for example a, 0, £ or ç), or any named key (tab, f1, shift, or cmd). If you are using a non-Latin layout (e.g. Cyrillic), you can bind either to the cyrillic character, or the latin character that that key generates with cmd pressed.

A few examples:

 "bindings": {
   "cmd-k cmd-s": "zed::OpenKeymap", // matches ⌘-k then ⌘-s
   "space e": "editor::Complete", // type space then e
   "ç": "editor::Complete", // matches ⌥-c
   "shift shift": "file_finder::Toggle", // matches pressing and releasing shift twice
 }

The shift- modifier can only be used in combination with a letter to indicate the uppercase version. For example shift-g matches typing G. Although on many keyboards shift is used to type punctuation characters like (, the keypress is not considered to be modified and so shift-( does not match.

The alt- modifier can be used on many layouts to generate a different key. For example on macOS US keyboard the combination alt-c types ç. You can match against either in your keymap file, though by convention Zed spells this combination as alt-c.

It is possible to match against typing a modifier key on its own. For example shift shift can be used to implement JetBrains search everywhere shortcut. In this case the binding happens on key release instead of key press.

Contexts

If a binding group has a "context" key it will be matched against the currently active contexts in Zed.

Zed's contexts make up a tree, with the root being Workspace. Workspaces contain Panes and Panels, and Panes contain Editors, etc. The easiest way to see what contexts are active at a given moment is the key context view, which you can get to with debug: Open Key Context View in the command palette.

Contexts can contain extra attributes in addition to the name, so that you can (for example) match only in markdown files with "context": "Editor && extension==md". It's worth noting that you can only use attributes at the level they are defined.

For example:

# in an editor, it might look like this:
Workspace os=macos keyboard_layout=com.apple.keylayout.QWERTY
  Pane
    Editor mode=full extension=md inline_completion vim_mode=insert

# in the project panel
Workspace os=macos
  Dock
    ProjectPanel not_editing

Context expressions can contain the following syntax:

  • X && Y, X || Y to and/or two conditions
  • !X to negate a condition
  • (X) for grouping
  • X > Y to match if a parent in the tree matches X and this layer matches Y.

If you're using Vim mode, we have information on how vim modes influence the context

Actions

Pretty much all of Zed's functionality is exposed as actions. Although there is no explicitly documented list, you can find most of them by searching in the command palette, by looking in the default keymaps for MacOS or Linux, or by using Zed's autocomplete in your keymap file.

Most actions do not require any arguments, and so you can bind them as strings: "ctrl-a": "language_selector::Toggle". Some require a single argument, and must be bound as an array: "ctrl-a": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "down"]. Some actions require multiple arguments, and are bound as an array of a string and an object: "ctrl-a": ["pane::DeploySearch", { "replace_enabled": true }].

Precedence

When multiple keybindings have the same keystroke and are active at the same time, precedence is resolved in two ways:

  • Bindings that match on lower nodes in the context tree win. This means that if you have a binding with a context of Editor it will take precedence over a binding with a context of Workspace. Bindings with no context match at the lowest level in the tree.
  • If there are multiple bindings that match at the same level in the tree, then the binding defined later takes precedence. As user keybindings are loaded after system keybindings, this allows user bindings to take precedence over builtin keybindings.

The other kind of conflict that arises is when you have two bindings, one of which is a prefix of the other. For example if you have "ctrl-w":"editor::DeleteToNextWordEnd" and "ctrl-w left":"editor::DeleteToEndOfLine".

When this happens, and both bindings are active in the current context, Zed will wait for 1 second after you tupe ctrl-w to se if you're about to type left. If you don't type anything, or if you type a different key, then DeleteToNextWordEnd will be triggered. If you do, then DeleteToEndOfLine will be triggered.

Non-QWERTY keyboards

As of Zed 0.162.0, Zed has some support for non-QWERTY keyboards on macOS. Better support for non-QWERTY keyboards on Linux is planned.

There are roughly three categories of keyboard to consider:

Keyboards that support full ASCII (QWERTY, DVORAK, COLEMAK, etc.). On these keyboards bindings are resolved based on the character that would be generated by the key. So to type cmd-[, find the key labelled [ and press it with command.

Keyboards that are mostly non-ASCII, but support full ASCII when the command key is pressed. For example Cyrillic keyboards, Armenian, Hebrew, etc. On these keyboards bindings are resolved based on the character that would be generated by typing the key with command pressed. So to type ctrl-a, find the key that generates cmd-a. For these keyboards, keyboard shortcuts are displayed in the app using their ASCII equivalents. If the ASCII-equivalents are not printed on your keyboard, you can use the macOS keyboard viewer and holding down the cmd key to find things (though often the ASCII equivalents are in a QWERTY layout).

Finally keyboards that support extended Latin alphabets (usually ISO keyboards) require the most support. For example French AZERTY, German QWERTZ, etc. On these keyboards it is often not possible to type the entire ASCII range without option. To ensure that shortcuts can be typed without option, keyboard shortcuts are mapped to "key equivalents" in the same way as macOS. This mapping is defined per layout, and is a compromise between leaving keyboard shortcuts triggered by the same character they are defined with, keeping shortcuts in the same place as a QWERTY layout, and moving shortcuts out of the way of system shortcuts.

For example on a German QWERTZ keyboard, the cmd-> shortcut is moved to cmd-: because cmd-> is the system window switcher and this is where that shortcut is typed on a QWERTY keyboard. cmd-+ stays the same because + is still typable without option, and as a result, cmd-[ and cmd-] become cmd-ö and cmd-ä, moving out of the way of the + key.

If you are defining shortcuts in your personal keymap, you can opt-out of the key equivalent mapping by setting use_layout_keys to true in your keymap:

[
  {
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl->": "editor::Indent" // parsed as ctrl-: when a German QWERTZ keyboard is active
    }
  },
  {
    "use_layout_keys": true,
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl->": "editor::Indent" // remains ctrl-> when a German QWERTZ keyboard is active
    }
  }
]

Tips and tricks

Disabling a binding

If you'd like a given binding to do nothing in a given context you can use null as the action. This is useful if you hit the keybinding by accident and want to disable it, or if you want to type the character that would be typed by the sequence (for example to disable the builtin alt-t binding), or if you want to disable multikey bindings starting with that key.

"bindings": { "cmd-k": null }

A null has the same precedence rules as normal actions. So disables all bindings that would match further up in the tree too. If you'd like a binding that matches further up in the tree to take precedence over a lower binding, you need to rebind it to the action you want in the context you want.

Remapping keys

A common request is to be able to map from a single keystroke to a sequence. You can do this with the workspace::SendKeystrokes action.

[
  {
    "bindings": {
      "alt-down": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "down down down down"],
      "cmd-alt-c": [
        "workspace::SendKeystrokes",
        "cmd-shift-p copy relative path enter"
      ],
      "cmd-alt-r": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "cmd-p README enter"]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Editor && vim_mode == insert",
    "bindings": {
      "j k": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "escape"]
    }
  }
]

There are some limitations to this, notably:

  • Any asynchronous operation will not happen until after all your key bindings have been dispatched. For example this means that while you can use a binding to open a file (as in the cmd-alt-r example) you cannot send further keystrokes and hope to have them interpreted by the new view.
  • Other examples of asynchronous things are: opening the command palette, communicating with a language server, changing the language of a buffer, anything that hits the network.
  • There is a limit of 100 simulated keys at a time.

The argument to SendKeystrokes is a space-separated list of keystrokes (using the same syntax as above). Due to the way that keystrokes are parsed, any segment that is not recognized as a keypress will be sent verbatim to the currently focused input field.

If the argument to SendKeystrokes contains the binding used to trigger it, it will use the next-highest-precedence definition of that binding. This allows you to extend the default behaviour of a key binding.

Forward keys to terminal

If you're on Linux or Windows, you might find yourself wanting to forward key combinations to the built-in terminal instead of them being handled by Zed.

For example, ctrl-n creates a new tab in Zed on Linux. If you want to send ctrl-n to the built-in terminal when it's focused, add the following to your keymap:

{
  "context": "Terminal",
  "bindings": {
    "ctrl-n": ["terminal::SendKeystroke", "ctrl-n"]
  }
}

Task Key bindings

You can also bind keys to launch Zed Tasks defined in your tasks.json. See the tasks documentation for more.