### What this solves
This PR adds support for HTTP and SSE (Server-Sent Events) transports to
Zed's context server implementation, enabling communication with remote
MCP servers. Currently, Zed only supports local MCP servers via stdio
transport. This limitation prevents users from:
- Connecting to cloud-hosted MCP servers
- Using MCP servers running in containers or on remote machines
- Leveraging MCP servers that are designed to work over HTTP/SSE
### Why it's important
The MCP (Model Context Protocol) specification includes HTTP/SSE as
standard transport options, and many MCP server implementations are
being built with these transports in mind. Without this support, Zed
users are limited to a subset of the MCP ecosystem. This is particularly
important for:
- Enterprise users who need to connect to centralized MCP services
- Developers working with MCP servers that require network isolation
- Users wanting to leverage cloud-based context providers (e.g.,
knowledge bases, API integrations)
### Implementation approach
The implementation follows Zed's existing architectural patterns:
- **Transports**: Added `HttpTransport` and `SseTransport` to the
`context_server` crate, built on top of the existing `http_client` crate
- **Async handling**: Uses `gpui::spawn` for network operations instead
of introducing a new Tokio runtime
- **Settings**: Extended `ContextServerSettings` enum with a `Remote`
variant to support URL-based configuration
- **UI**: Updated the agent configuration UI with an "Add Remote Server"
option and dedicated modal for remote server management
### Changes included
- [x] HTTP transport implementation with request/response handling
- [x] SSE transport for server-sent events streaming
- [x] `build_transport` function to construct appropriate transport
based on URL scheme
- [x] Settings system updates to support remote server configuration
- [x] UI updates for adding/editing remote servers
- [x] Unit tests using `FakeHttpClient` for both transports
- [x] Integration tests (WIP)
- [x] Documentation updates (WIP)
### Testing
- Unit tests for both `HttpTransport` and `SseTransport` using mocked
HTTP client
- Manual testing with example MCP servers over HTTP/SSE
- Settings validation and UI interaction testing
### Screenshots/Recordings
[TODO: Add screenshots of the new "Add Remote Server" UI and
configuration modal]
### Example configuration
Users can now configure remote MCP servers in their `settings.json`:
```json
{
"context_servers": {
"my-remote-server": {
"enabled": true,
"url": "http://localhost:3000/mcp"
}
}
}
```
### AI assistance disclosure
I used AI to help with:
- Understanding the MCP protocol specification and how HTTP/SSE
transports should work
- Reviewing Zed's existing patterns for async operations and suggesting
consistent approaches
- Generating boilerplate for test cases
- Debugging SSE streaming issues
All code has been manually reviewed, tested, and adapted to fit Zed's
architecture. The core logic, architectural decisions, and integration
with Zed's systems were done with human understanding of the codebase.
AI was primarily used as a reference tool and for getting unstuck on
specific technical issues.
Release notes:
* You can now configure MCP Servers that connect over HTTP in your
settings file. These are not yet available in the extensions API.
```
{
"context_servers": {
"my-remote-server": {
"enabled": true,
"url": "http://localhost:3000/mcp"
}
}
}
```
---------
Co-authored-by: Conrad Irwin <conrad.irwin@gmail.com>
This PR's goal is to improve discoverability of how Zed "remembers" the
currently selected agent when hitting `cmd-n` (or `ctrl-n`). Hitting
that binding starts a new thread with whatever agent is currently
selected.
In the example below, I am in a Claude Code thread and if I hit `cmd-n`,
a new, fresh CC thread will be started:
<img width="500" height="822" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-18 at 1 13@2x"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d3acd1aa-459d-4078-9b62-bbac3b8c1600"
/>
Release Notes:
- agent: Improved discoverability of the `cmd-n` keybinding to create a
new thread with the currently selected agent.
Closes https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/32701
Release Notes:
- agent: Fixed a bug where hitting the `NewThread` keybinding when
focused inside a terminal within the agent panel would create a new
terminal tab instead of a new thread.
This PR makes the description in the callout that display general errors
in the agent panel be rendered as markdown. This allow us to pass URLs
to these error strings that will be clickable, improving the overall
interaction with them. Here's an example:
<img width="500" height="396" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-14 at 11 43@2x"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f4fc629a-6314-4da1-8c19-b60e1a09653b"
/>
Release Notes:
- agent: Improved the interaction with errors by allowing links to be
clickable.
Closes https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/36330
Closes https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/35460
This PR improves how we display markdown tables by relying on grids
rather than flexbox. Given this makes text inside each cell wrap, I
ended up removing the `table_overflow_x_scroll` method, as it was 1)
used only in the agent panel, and 2) arguably not the best approach as a
whole, because as soon as you need to scroll a table, you probably need
more elements to make it be really great.
One thing I'm slightly unsatisfied with, though, is the border
situation. I added a half pixel border to the cell so they all sum up to
1px, but there are cases where there's a tiny space between rows and I
don't quite know where that's coming from and how it happens. But I
think it's a reasonable improvement overall.
<img width="500" height="1248" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-13 at 7 05@2x"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/182b2235-efeb-4a61-ada2-98262967355d"
/>
Release Notes:
- agent: Improved table rendering in the agent panel, ensuring cell text
wraps, not going off-screen.
## Summary
Fixes#42342
When installing a dev extension with long installation instructions, the
configuration modal would overflow and users couldn't scroll to see the
full content or interact with buttons at the bottom.
## Solution
This PR adds a `ScrollHandle` to the `ConfigureContextServerModal` and
passes it to the `Modal` component, enabling the built-in modal
scrolling capability. This ensures all content remains accessible
regardless of length.
## Changes
- Added `ScrollHandle` import to the ui imports
- Added `scroll_handle: ScrollHandle` field to
`ConfigureContextServerModal` struct
- Initialize `scroll_handle` with `ScrollHandle::new()` when creating
the modal
- Pass the scroll handle to `Modal::new()` instead of `None`
## Testing
- Built the changes locally
- Tested with extensions that have long installation instructions
- Verified scrolling works and all content is accessible
- Confirmed no regression for extensions with short descriptions
Release Notes:
- Fixed scrolling issue in extension configuration modal when
installation instructions overflow the viewport
---------
Co-authored-by: Finn Evers <finn.evers@outlook.de>
<img width="395" height="444" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-11 at 4 04 57 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8da68721-6e33-4d01-810d-4aa1e2f3402d"
/>
Discussed with @danilo-leal and we're going with the "it's checked in
both places" design!
Closes#40910
Release Notes:
- Recommended AI models now still appear in their normal category in
addition to "Recommended:"
Closes https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/37087
This PR adds an icon button to the footer of the message editor enabling
to trigger and interact with the @-mention completions menu with the
mouse. This is a first step towards making other types of context you
can add in Zed's agent panel more discoverable. Next, I want to improve
the discoverability of images and selections, given that you wouldn't
necessarily know they work in Zed without a clear way to see them. But I
think that for now, this is enough to close the issue above, which had
lots of productive comments and discussion!
<img width="500" height="540" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-11 at 10 46 3@2x"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fd028442-6f77-4153-bea1-c0b815da4ac6"
/>
Release Notes:
- agent: Added an icon button in the agent panel that allows to trigger
the @-mention menu (for adding context) now also with the mouse.
This PR also adds items within the "Add Agent" menu to:
1. Add more agent servers from extensions, opening up the extensions
page with "Agent Servers" already filtered
2. Go to the agent server + ACP docs to learn more about them
I feel like having them there is a nice way to promote this knowledge
from within the product and have users learn more about them.
<img width="500" height="540" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-11 at 10 46 3@2x"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9449df2e-1568-44d8-83ca-87cbb9eefdd2"
/>
Release Notes:
- agent: Enabled uninstalled agent servers from the agent panel's
settings view.
Closes https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/42312
The issue here was that we assumed that context servers provided by
extensions would always need a config in the settings to be present when
actually the opposite was the case - context servers provided by
extensions are the only context servers that do not need a config to be
in place in order to be available in the UI.
Release Notes:
- Fixed an issue where context servers provided by extensions could not
be uninstalled if they were previously unconfigured.
This PR creates a dedicated function for the agent panel message
editor's placeholder text so that we can wait for the agent
initialization to capture whether they support slash commands or not. On
the one (nice) hand, this allow us to stop matching agents by name and
make this a bit more generic. On the other (bad) hand, the "/ for
commands" bit should take a little second to show up because we can only
know whether an agent supports it after it is initialized.
This is particularly relevant now that we have agents coming from
extensions and for them, we would obviously not be able to match by
name.
Release Notes:
- agent: Fixed agent panel message editor's placeholder text by making
it more accurate as to whether agents support slash commands,
particularly those coming from extensions.
Closes https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/42356
This PR fixes the history view losing focus by simply always displaying
the search editor. I don't think it's too weird to not have it when it's
empty, and it also ends up matching how regular pickers work.
Release Notes:
- agent: Fixed a bug where navigating the agent panel with the keyboard
wouldn't work if you visited the history view and it was empty/had no
entries.
Closes#42178
Now it's consistent with the DateAndTime path which already does
timezone conversion.
- **Future Work**
Happy to tackle the TODO in `time_format.rs` about implementing native
Windows APIs for proper localized formatting (similar to macOS's
`CFDateFormatter`) as a follow-up.
Release Notes:
- agent: Fixed the thread history item timestamp, which was being shown
in GMT instead of in the user's local timezone on Windows.
We can always include symbols, since we either include a ResourceLink to
the symbol (when `PromptCapabilities::embedded_context = false`) or a
Resource (when `PromptCapabilities::embedded_context = true`)
Release Notes:
- Fixed an issue where symbols could not be included when using specific
ACP agents
Agents running in extensions need to have a root directory of the
extension's dir for installation and authentication, but *not* for the
conversation itself - otherwise the agent is running things like
terminal commands in the wrong dir.
Release Notes:
- Fixed Agent Server extensions having the current working directory of
the extension rather than the project
Now that agent servers are a thing, this is the primary and easiest way
to quickly add more agents to Zed, without touching any settings JSON
file. :)
Release Notes:
- N/A
This makes it possible to do login via things like `cmd: "node", args:
["my-node-file.js", "login"]`
Also, that command will now use Zed's managed `node` instance.
Release Notes:
- ACP extensions can now run terminal login commands using relative
paths
This PR changes the loading/generating indicator when in the "waiting
for tool call confirmation" state so that's a bit more visible and
discernible as needing your attention, as opposed to a regular
generating state.
<img width="400" alt="Screenshot 2025-11-05 at 10 46@2x"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/88adbf97-20fb-49c4-9c77-b0a3a22aa14e"
/>
Release Notes:
- agent: Improved the "waiting for confirmation" state visibility so
that you more rapidly know the agent is waiting for you to act.
Mostly just removing "thread" from all external agent menu items; I
think we can do without it and it already becomes much better/cleaner.
Release Notes:
- N/A
As discussed with @benbrandt and @mikayla-maki:
* We now tell ACP clients we support the nonstandard `terminal-auth`
`_meta` field for terminal-based authentication
* In the future, we anticipate ACP itself supporting *some* form of
terminal-based authentication, but that hasn't been designed yet or gone
through the RFD process
* For now, this unblocks terminal-based auth
Release Notes:
- Added experimental terminal-based authentication to ACP support
This has been possible in the inline assistant for ages now and maybe
you didn't know because we didn't say anything about it! This PR fixes
that by including that you can @-mention context on it the same you can
in the agent panel.
Release Notes:
- N/A
