Hidden Gems: Part 2 - Zed Blog

We're back with more hidden gems to help you unearth some productivity wins in Zed. This time around, we've included some of your hidden gems, and tasks seem to have stolen the show. Let's dig in! 💎

Adjust Task Commands on the Fly

Sometimes, the tasks provided by an extension get most of the command right, except for a small part that needs to be changed. For instance, I like how cargo --foo path-to-module --bar --something is created for my tests, but sometimes I want to see a backtrace of the failure. Yet, there's no "run this test with backtraces on" task in the extension.

Luckily, all Zed tasks end up being run in the terminal, so the command can be customized before running. When selecting a task in the modal (task: spawn in the command palette), you'll see a list of available tasks:

Task modal showing available tasks

Pressing tab expands the task into its full command:

Task modal after pressing tab, showing the expanded command

Here, I can edit the task however I need to, e.g., add RUST_BACKTRACE=1 in my case.

Then, another task feature comes in very handy: oneshot tasks. Pressing alt-enter in the task modal spawns whatever is in its input right now, thus running my tests with backtraces enabled.

Running a task with the RUST_BACKTRACE=1 addition

This modified task is saved to the modal's history, where it can be rerun or removed as needed.

Task modal showing the modified task saved in history

Add Run Buttons for Bun Tests

If you're a JS/TS developer who uses Bun and your project has @types/bun in package.json, Zed will automatically surface bun test run tasks for you. If you are using a different setup where Bun isn't automatically detected, here’s how to add bun test run tasks yourself. Add the following to your tasks.json file:

[
  {
    "label": "Bun Test",
    "command": "bun test",
    "args": ["\"$ZED_RELATIVE_FILE\" -t=\"$ZED_SYMBOL\""],
    "tags": ["js-test", "ts-test", "bun-test", "tsx-test"]
  }
]

Now, clicking the play buttons in the gutter will run your tests with Bun:

Bun test tasks

Flair for Files

Zed ships with a set of monochrome file icons.

Zed's monochrome icons

These are nice, but if you're looking to bling out your project panel:

1. Open the extensions view (command palette -> zed: extensions)
2. Search for Catppuccin Icons
3. Hit the Install button
4. Open the Icon Theme selector (command palette -> icon theme selector: toggle)
5. Pick your favorite Catppuccin variant

Catppuccin icons

Now your project panel has clear visual distinctions between file types.

Bonus tip: You can add icons to your tabs as well! Configure this setting in Zed right now, or manually add the following snippet to your settings.json.

"tabs": { "file_icons": true }

Emulate Vim's Telescope via Television

1. Install television

2. Add the following to tasks.json

   {
     "label": "Television File Finder",
     "command": "zed \"$(tv files)\"",
     "hide": "always",
     "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
     "use_new_terminal": true
   }
   

3. Bind the custom task to a keybinding in your keymap.json. In this case, we'll override the keybinding for file finder: toggle.

   {
     "bindings": {
       "cmd-p": [ // Or `ctrl-p`
         "task::Spawn",
         { "task_name": "Television File Finder", "reveal_target": "center" },
       ],
     },
   },
   

4. Press cmd-p (macOS) / ctrl-p (Windows, Linux)

   

   Television file finder

Launch Terminal with Project-Specific tmux Sessions

If you're a tmux user, you can configure Zed to automatically attach to a project-specific tmux session when you open the terminal. Add the following to your settings.json file:

"terminal": {
  "shell": {
    "with_arguments": {
      "program": "/bin/zsh", // or path to your preferred shell
      "args": ["-c", "tmux new-session -A -s \"$(basename \"$PWD\")\""]
    }
  }
}

This is great for those who prefer keyboard-driven workflows for selecting, copying, and navigating inside the terminal.

Terminal running a project-specific tmux session with multiple panes

Mapping Unknown File Types to Known Languages

Out of the box, Zed can recognize most common languages based on a file's extension. It knows to both apply JavaScript syntax highlighting and start a JavaScript language server if the file has .js as its extension. Zed will treat files with extensions it doesn't recognize, such as .jsm, as plaintext files; however, you can tell Zed to treat these files as ones it understands through the language selector (command palette -> language selector: toggle -> JavaScript).

Great! However, there is one drawback—this is only a temporary override. Zed will forget about this association the moment you close this file. To persist this association, you can configure a mapping via the file_types setting:

"file_types": { "JavaScript": ["*.jsm"] }

Now, every time you open a .jsm file, it will be treated as a .js file. file_types supports glob patterns; see more examples in the documentation.

It is always best to first browse Zed's extension store (command palette -> zed: extensions) to see if direct support for your language already exists, but if it does not, file_types is a great workaround.

Digging Deeper

If you develop for Apple platforms or use Maya for 3D work, check out these in-depth task-based guides from the community:

Let us know which of these gems you found most useful, and please share your gems, so we can adopt the tips you can't live without.

Related Posts

Check out similar blogs from the Zed team.

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