Tools

Zed's built-in agent has access to these tools for reading, searching, and editing your codebase. These tools are used in the Agent Panel during conversations with AI agents.

You can configure permissions for tool actions, including situations where they are automatically approved, automatically denied, or require your confirmation on a case-by-case basis. See Tool Permissions for the list of permission-gated tools and details.

To add custom tools beyond these built-in ones, see MCP servers.

Read & Search Tools

diagnostics

Gets errors and warnings for either a specific file or the entire project, useful after making edits to determine if further changes are needed. When a path is provided, shows all diagnostics for that specific file. When no path is provided, shows a summary of error and warning counts for all files in the project.

Example: After editing src/parser.rs, call diagnostics with that path to check for type errors immediately. After a larger refactor touching many files, call it without a path to see a project-wide count of errors before deciding what to fix next.

fetch

Fetches a URL and returns the content as Markdown. Useful for providing docs as context.

Example: Fetching a library's changelog page to check whether a breaking API change was introduced in a recent version before writing integration code.

find_path

Quickly finds files by matching glob patterns (like "*/.js"), returning matching file paths alphabetically.

grep

Searches file contents across the project using regular expressions, preferred for finding symbols in code without knowing exact file paths.

Example: To find every call site of a function before renaming it, search for parse_config\( — the regex matches the function name followed by an opening parenthesis, filtering out comments or variable names that happen to contain the string.

list_directory

Lists files and directories in a given path, providing an overview of filesystem contents.

now

Returns the current date and time.

open

Opens a file or URL with the default application associated with it on the user's operating system.

read_file

Reads the content of a specified file in the project, allowing access to file contents.

thinking

Allows the Agent to work through problems, brainstorm ideas, or plan without executing actions, useful for complex problem-solving.

web_search

Searches the web for information, providing results with snippets and links from relevant web pages, useful for accessing real-time information.

Example: Looking up whether a known bug in a dependency has been patched in a recent release, or finding the current API signature for a third-party library when the local docs are out of date.

Edit Tools

copy_path

Copies a file or directory recursively in the project, more efficient than manually reading and writing files when duplicating content.

create_directory

Creates a new directory at the specified path within the project, creating all necessary parent directories (similar to mkdir -p).

delete_path

Deletes a file or directory (including contents recursively) at the specified path and confirms the deletion.

edit_file

Edits files by replacing specific text with new content.

Example: Updating a function signature — the agent identifies the exact lines to replace and provides the updated version, leaving the surrounding code untouched. For widespread renames, it pairs this with grep to find every occurrence first.

move_path

Moves or renames a file or directory in the project, performing a rename if only the filename differs.

restore_file_from_disk

Discards unsaved changes in open buffers by reloading file contents from disk. Useful for resetting files to their on-disk state before retrying an edit.

save_file

Saves files that have unsaved changes. Used when files need to be saved before further edits can be made.

terminal

Executes shell commands and returns the combined output, creating a new shell process for each invocation.

Example: After editing a Rust file, run cargo test --package my_crate 2>&1 | tail -30 to confirm the changes don't break existing tests. Or run git diff --stat to review which files have been modified before wrapping up a task.

Other Tools

spawn_agent

Spawns a subagent with its own context window to perform a delegated task. Useful for running parallel investigations, completing self-contained tasks, or performing research where only the outcome matters. Each subagent has access to the same tools as the parent agent.

Example: While refactoring the authentication module, spawn a subagent to investigate how session tokens are validated elsewhere in the codebase. The parent agent continues its work and reviews the subagent's findings when it completes — keeping both context windows focused on a single task.