Agentic mode for AI Assistant

[aevsai]

Recently i tried Cursor agentic mode and now want that in Zed (btw I am not the only one with such request). I found some other topics that may be related to this discussion, but I think it would be right to make and discuss feature proposition in correct category.
Some of related issues:

• Should Zed's AI Assistant (optionally) become an Agent? #23396
• AI Assistant should have embedding context of the entire codebase #15924
• ZedAI Multi file edits like Cursor's composer #16562
• Allow to hide the thought process of "thinking" models in the assistant panel #22373
• Apply AI-suggested changes directly from panel #22903

All discussions comes to this list:

• Make assistant better understand codebase context, e.g. gather context automatically depending on request like cursor does. In order to do this @stippi offered to implement tools like list-files, read-files, update-files, create-files, execute-command, and search for tool call, so agents could gather contexts themselves
• Document "Suggest edits" and /workflow, so users would understand how to enable it and what to use (e.g. /workflow is replaced with "Suggest edits", but there is nothing in documentation about it or about when enable_experimental_live_diffs for assistant would become part of stable build and would it be enabled by default?
• Add agentic mode and ability to make custom workflows that would be able to use functions above.
• Hide chain of thoughts with spoiler (config depends on model)

I started to gather requirements to make a plan for realisation and found out that there are questions that should be answered at first:

• How do we spawn new chat with agent? Some other editors have separate "agent" mode, but I am not sure that it is the best way. I actually think it is better to be able to attach agent for existing chat/context like /agent {name} or add selector near the send button or near model selector?
  
• Should we have some way to describe custom agents and workflows? Maybe some json-based config like tasks?
• Should we explicitly define set of functions for tool call?
• How should we approach privacy? Should we limit what agent can do: should we hide env files? should we limit agent to project folder? for something local like llama it is ok to read secrets, but for cloud llms there definitely should be some restrictions
• What key bindings should be available?

[LivioGama]

https://liviogama.notion.site/Building-Cursor-Product-Manager-3-0-18dfec27aed880f59ae8cd8318cd50bf?pvs=4

[aevsai]

@LivioGama thanks for ideas, though it would be more valuable if you summarise provided content and highlight main idea as it hard to keep discussion based on screenshots from chatgpt

[LivioGama]

The whole point is to have the reasoning and the details. The summary is already the first message.

[notpeter]

Do not tag Zed team members into new discussions. Definitely don't tag more team member if they (checks notes) fail to respond within 1 business day. This is notification spam and a violation of the Zed Code of Conduct. Consider yourself warned, don't do this.

Separate of the notification spam, you are not entitled to an immediate response as to the future direction of Zed and whether something is our roadmap. Obviously the topics raised are features we we are considering, but we don't pre-announce features before they have been designed/implemented. If you would like a glimpse at what is coming in the near term (weeks) checkout the #ai Zed channel notes, which is publicly accessible.

[itsaphel]

[aevsai]

I copied discussion into correct category with feature proposition and commented that we should discuss it here #23396 (reply in thread)

[kdcokenny]

Hey, so there's a company competing with cursor in the VSCode realm and pretty much all they do is find the best open source ai coding software and integrate it seamlessly into the IDE. It's called PairAI. Do you think an approach like this may be the best initial approach so that the Zed team doesn't need to build these tools from the ground up?

[aevsai]

Hi, that sounds great, however I am not sure about Zed's policy on bringing such dependencies into project and moreover I can't find PairAI repository or website to check what this project is about. Can you please attach a link to mentioned project?

[kdcokenny]

https://github.com/trypear/pearai-app

[Cheirnomus]

The idea of selecting agent modes sounds reasonable. The mode I'd like to see is one where I'm able to provide a prompt template for a complete app structure and then set a mode that then places the results generated into project directories and files automatically.

I have tried to convey that concept and mode in #21259

So far, I check back with Zed but have not seen any progress in the AI department to speak of. I tested my template with WindSurf and it was able generate the project structure. Still I'd like to see Zed lead the charge in the AI IDE arena.

[aevsai]

Thanks for great example of why different agents are good idea, maybe you can provide a repo with example of your usecase? It would be easier to test such thing in zed if we would sync expectations

[Cheirnomus]

My usecase is straightforward. I spend the bulk of my time honing my prompts and get back great results in a great text editor. From there, I just want to run the code ASAP and not have to copy and paste it section by section from the Assistant Panel and also have to build project directories and files that I already asked for in my initial prompt. I just what to be productive on the full implementation loop and work fast not slow.

[savoygrizzly]

After trying out cursor in agent mode I can 100% say this makes the whole things much faster and efficient. I also don't have to spend 5minutes figuring out which small blocks of changes goes where. Zed needs an AI overhaul asap, I have used it for a year but unfortunately I will now use cursor for projects on which I work alone. Zed collab is great, Zed Ai... not so much.

[aevsai]

Small update with a list of useful resources:

• Zed Context Servers – Zed supports context servers based on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing data and tools to be retrieved within a request. Currently, Zed supports only prompts.
• Building Effective Agents – An article from Anthropic about building AI agents and workflows.

At this point, it seems reasonable to extend MCP support for tools and add an MCP tool server as part of Zed. This also aligns with tasks in the #ai channel regarding context inference.

[stippi]

Hi. Tool support in the MCP client would be great. However, a direct integration would allow for a much smoother UX, like seeing loaded files, and suggested edits that can be approved, tool use approval, all directly in the Assistent panel. Also UI for rolling back a batch of changes and so on.

[aevsai]

Can you give an example of how direct integration would be different from MCP? If you want to have control over files that agent would use like be able to confirm files or something is sounds to be fine with MCP:

1. agent request list of files
2. choose what it wants to include into context
3. you review and confirm ->
4. the rest of agent flow

I mean MCP server would still be a part of Zed and probably just would be connected to Zeds API's like "Find in project". Or I miss something about the way MCP works?

[stippi]

As far as I am aware, the MCP server has no control over the UI of the MCP client. So while the MCP client can be aware of what tools the LLM calls (name, parameters), it cannot know what those tools do and how best to visualize them. Or even visualize a cumulative effect of the tools. As an example, the agentic assistant might want to explore the code base. It may read a bunch of files, later some more files, all of which it now has in working memory. A direct integration can have a dedicated UI area showing loaded files.
Another consideration: An MCP client is bound to the chat template. It has to directly forward tool calls and tool results as chat messages to the LLM provider API. This forces the agent loop to accumulate chat messages. It cannot rewrite history when it doesn't know what the tools (in the MCP server) do. This could mean multiple versions of a file are in the context window. An agent loop that is not forced to use the chat template can be more efficient.

[savoygrizzly]

I second this.
Zed is awesome in the way it is designed, but is falling behind in terms of AI. The tab mode is much needed (should come out shortly from what I gather), as well as an agent mode.

[kerma]

Here's an example neovim plugin which gets the workflow I'd be interested in having in zed: https://github.com/dlants/magenta.nvim

It seems the basics are already in place in zed. I'd start by giving the agent LSP as a tool, and allow users to configure additional tools as needed. Another great example of how this has been solved is in goose extensions - https://block.github.io/goose/docs/getting-started/using-extensions
... which itself could maybe be leveraged in order to not re-invent the wheel? Or at least it maybe helps in fleshing out the POC.

[aevsai]

Quick update: from what i saw in recent code: team working on bringing tool calls to assistant, but still, no official announces or updates

I'd say that main goal for us as community rn is to provide clear requirements/expectation on agents mode features and how it should work alongside with usual assistant, bc agents probably would be based on suggest edits feature that right now works as follow:

1. take file and user message
2. insert them into template
3. feed into llm
4. parse result and display with live diff

So to make custom agents there is no need in some additional selectors as i've suggested before, i would say that it could be achieved with slash command to include agent promp. However prompt template for live diff should not oblige you to use it only with attached tab or file.

[aevsai]

Found ui prototype for assistant2 https://zed-prototyping.vercel.app/, looks very cursor-like in #ai notes called Chat with codebase, there is a bunch of tasks in progress

[aevsai]

Roadmap shows that its in early progress https://zed.dev/roadmap

[KorigamiK]

perhaps it's already mentioned somewhere else, but can you share who's responsible for creating and updating https://zed-prototyping.vercel.app/ ? I love the concept and was wondering if it is opensource?

[aevsai]

I suppose its the work of https://github.com/danilo-leal, he is designer at zed

[Aeolun]

Notes on AI channel indicate a target date somewhere early April, which seems a bit ambitious, but would obviously be very nice if hit.

[Aeolun]

Agentic mode would be (even) nices, but for now I’d be plenty happy with a context server that finds/adds files relevant to the current chat.

I’m going to see what I can do with MCP and slash commands.

[aevsai]

I tried to make an MCP extensions for project structure (aka ls -laR from terminal), but couldn't find the way to get current project path. I'm not sure is extensions api even support this rn. Share details pls, if you would find the way to do that.

[Aeolun]

I was planning to specify the path manually in extension settings for now, but I suppose feeding the context server the project path is not an unreasonable PR to submit either.