Native Git Support in Zed | Hacker News Reader

Native Git Support in Zed

zed.dev

48 pointsDASD11 comments

This may be borderline off topic, but I don't really understand the desire to have git support in your text editor. It can be very nice for viewing blames, but for managing commits and stuff it has always felt a bit clunky to me. Maybe that is because of my workflow however. I typically review every line being staged by using `git add -p` so that I commit exactly what I intend to commit, and that workflow doesn't really mesh well with an editor.

`git add -p` opens an editor to stage individual lines/hunks right?

If so, would a better workflow not be the editor providing shortcuts to stage/unstage individual lines/hunks (which it can indicate in some state column) and a list of files with unstaged changes (to replace the inevitable `git status`)?

You get the same flexibility of crafting commits, directly from the place you’ve edited the files without having intermediate CLI commands. And all the other niceness of the editor (syntax highlighting etc).

Some things are just much faster in an editor.

I used `git add -p` until very recently (basically, until we built this feature in Zed). If you're using `add -p` and you notice a problem that you want to fix before committing, you need to go find that same bit of code in your editor, edit the code, then re-start your `add -p`. If you had chosen not to stage some preceding hunks, you need to skip over those again. Also, an editor can just render code much more readably than the git CLI can.

ah indeed, that definitely happens a lot in larger commits and it can be a huge pain. Great point!

my workflow involves switching between files in working set, sometimes going back to staged. The git panel is easier to navigate than the file tree. I also need to see all the markers for recent changes I made, they are in git diff

Inside the editor in VSCode I would select a chunk that includes the markers that I want to stage, and stage them deliberately like you do.

For the actual commit often I have to do terminal because VSCode would fail to give me the relevant commit hook error message.

I use the GitHub Desktop app a lot, every day, the viewing diff there is so clear. But I am happy to use Zed to open multiple projects, switch branch, stage changes, commit and push. Otherwise I have to switch to different repo in the GitHub Desktop. In most cases, I don't need a full IDE, since I only need to make few lines change of a terraform or a markdown file, or update the dependency in a package.json.

I've been using Zed for a while now as it is the only editor that could replace TextMate for me in terms of having a native macOS feel but that does incorporate more IDE like features TextMate misses (like lsp and treesitter).

I welcome proper Git support, because it would mean fewer switches between editor and terminal (also the in IDE terminal just doesn't work). I hope they nailed it with the small details like they do for most of the application. I've been using GitX in the past and recently Lazygit as my main Git interface. Especially the line by line staging akin to `git add -p` would be welcome, but I read they are not quiet there yet?

I'm curious if it'l allow a workflow where amending to previous commits is easy. This workflow is really easy in Lazygit (using fixups and autosquash under the hood) and makes organising code into separate topic commits without much additional effort. And since Zed is all on the AI train they might incorporate something like git-absorb to automagically amend small changes into the commits they are related to.

I'd also love if they incorporate a proper overview of the Git tree, currently `tig --all` is my goto for that. Or one that allows you to drag and drop branches and rebases previews like Ungit (https://youtu.be/hkBVAi3oKvo?t=236) as that was the point that Git really started to make sense for me.

> because it's 2025—Zed can ask your preferred LLM to write the message for you

Zed seems to have a lot going for it. Though the everpresent AI push has me concerned to invest my time into learning its intricacies, for fear of it devolving into Yep Another AI Editor.

So far it’s all optional stuff. I think the editor is worth trying purely for how snappy the UI is, whilst not really missing any of the nice major features of VS Code that I actually use. Even without the AI stuff, it is an editor with a lot of potential.

I am impressed with the entire Zed editor and it s not some Electron nonsense. Huge respect guys, I dont think anything can compete.

I'll have to try this out. I'm currently a huge GitKraken[1] fan.

[1] https://gitkraken.com

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