The Parallel agents feature seems to be built around git worktrees or local projects. But I think local project mode defeats the point. In my day to day development workflow I've switched fully to jj and jj workspaces, so this isn't something I'll be using until Zed gets jj support. Also this change ended up with a reshuffled layout I didn't really expect and I can't really figure out how to revert it now
Parallel agents in Zed
131–140 of 178 posts
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
A proper git implementation. I end up doing things in the terminal tab because its faster than the ui or is more clear. The basics are good but thats about it.
What git features are you missing? We've been adding a ton recently
Just injecting this here: What I've been missing is an equivalent for GitHub's "blame prior revision" feature to quickly follow through the history of individual source lines.
https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/42583
Thanks for building an awesome product :)
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Love to hear it! (Conductor founder here). This is helpful to know - we're working on adding more agents, Copilot and OpenCode harnesses are among the most popular requests. We also recently built an escape hatch. If you turn on Settings → Experimental → Big Terminal Mode you can create new terminals in the center panel (with ⌘⇧T) and use any agent you'd like (Copilot, OpenCode, etc). It isn't the best experience bec…
I’m interested in these types of tools, but the biggest issue I am currently having in my workflow is manually verifying everything is working. Tests and stuff are nice, but typically if there is a bug, the AI agents enshrine it in th tests. However with worktrees I am not really able to easily copy secrets, etc to run my app, ports conflict, I end up with a bunch of separate dbs and services, etc. Does conductor hel…
Conductor has a feature that lets you define a script to copy .env and other things as needed from main repo into new worktrees on creation.
I don't use it much anymore, but last I did I would run into port conflicts with docker projects.
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#134I find parallel agents to be an exception rather than a norm. Maybe I’m the problem? For those exceptional cases, opening a few more terminals gets the job done. It’s unclear to me if this needs to be the primary workflow. My brain naturally does better on deep work on one problem..
I am exactly the same, except I am really excited about this update! It’s not so much “in parallel” but being able to easily jump between threads. It allows me to dive into misc investigations in a side thread without derailing some main context where I’m doing the main editing.
I have a coding agent https://github.com/hsaliak/std_slop where the sessions are in SQL ledger. So /session [new, clone, deletes, undo] are supported and all sessions are persistent. Cloning lets you 'fork' the context and undo lets you roll back, basically solving the problem you state above.
Sessions are linear though, so you cant do this _while_ an existing session is cooking.
That said, I am excited about this update too, I've been playing with ACP support and Zed's UX was bare bones. I want to run my agent with multiple workers now, and see what happens.
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#135The new default layout is exactly backwards of what I want.
It should go: project tree | text editor | agent view | threads
Not to mention on most laptops you'll only have room for about two panes at a time. So they should be focusing on pane management and making it easy to swap between views. Not highlighting 4 pane workflows. Unless you have an ultra-wide monitor, I'd rather have a separate Agents window.
I use Zed a lot and this is a minor (can be configured) but telling design decision that really bothers me. How long until they decide editing itself isn't worth it anymore? Stop supporting VI mode?
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#136The new default layout is exactly backwards of what I want. It should go: project tree | text editor | agent view | threads Not to mention on most laptops you'll only have room for about two panes at a time. So they should be focusing on pane management and making it easy to swap between views. Not highlighting 4 pane workflows. Unless you have an ultra-wide monitor, I'd rather have a separate Agents window. I use Ze…
Yeah, first thing I did was change all the locations back. I really dislike the automatic layout change they pushed.
Also, watching the change notes, most effort seems to be focused on agents this days, which is a bit worrying. I love Zed because it's great editor that also knows a bit about agents; I don't want it to continue pivoting towards pushing agent management deeper and deeper into the experience.
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#137[flagged]
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#138The new default layout is exactly backwards of what I want. It should go: project tree | text editor | agent view | threads Not to mention on most laptops you'll only have room for about two panes at a time. So they should be focusing on pane management and making it easy to swap between views. Not highlighting 4 pane workflows. Unless you have an ultra-wide monitor, I'd rather have a separate Agents window. I use Ze…
Yeah, first thing I did was change all the locations back. I really dislike the automatic layout change they pushed. Also, watching the change notes, most effort seems to be focused on agents this days, which is a bit worrying. I love Zed because it's great editor that also knows a bit about agents; I don't want it to continue pivoting towards pushing agent management deeper and deeper into the experience.
$VC disagrees w/ you on this.
Unfortunately.
Personally, I still pay Zed because I think they’re doing great foundational work. However I’ve now almost entirely migrated to helix for editing needs.
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#139I'll just leave this here (again): https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/36604
Re: Parallel agents in Zed
#140I personally explicitly avoid parallel agents, since it creates too much cognitive debt, and sometimes an agent may need steering towards an architectally sane solution mid-work.