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Z

Zed

DEVOPS
Velocity6.3

High-performance multiplayer code editor built in Rust

Zed draws boundaries around the Agent, then spends every patch release closing escapes from them.

agent-sandboxinggit-toolingweekly-releasesextension-runtimemodel-rosterdata-preview
Current state
Zed is on a weekly train where feature releases alternate with same-week patch releases, and the patches have become the more revealing half. The 1.16 line shipped Gemini 3.6 Flash, collapsible Git change groups and optional stash messages, then spent two point releases on corrective work including a filesystem sandbox escape in the extension runtime. The 1.17 release widens the editor itself for the first time in a while, adding sortable and filterable table previews for CSV, TSV, PSV and SSV files, more Git blame and stash actions, and lower memory use on large files.
Where it's heading
The containment work that started with sandboxing the Agent's terminal and fetch tools in 1.14.2 has turned into an ongoing maintenance obligation rather than a finished feature, now spanning two separate sandboxes with the extension runtime the less-watched of the two. Alongside it, the Agent is gaining interaction primitives rather than autonomy: 1.17.2 adds an ask_user tool that puts questions to the developer as forms with selectable options or free text. Git tooling keeps getting more granular and the model roster churns constantly beneath both.
Prediction
The extension sandbox looks likely to get the same explicit treatment the Agent's got in 1.14.2 - a stated permission model rather than a series of patched escapes. The tabular preview arriving with sorting and filtering also suggests data files are being treated as a viewable type rather than text, so editing or querying them is the obvious next step.

Recent moves

  1. 7d ago

    Zed 1.17.2 adds sortable CSV previews and new Git blame actions

    The week's feature release adds tabular previews for CSV, TSV, PSV and SSV files with sortable, resizable columns, value-based row filtering and right-click copying, plus blame-at-revision actions, Stash Tracked and Stash Staged, and lower memory use on large files. The Agent also gains an ask_user tool that poses questions as forms, which fits Zed's pattern of giving the Agent structure rather than more latitude.

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  2. 7d ago

    Zed 1.16.3 fixes a Git panel crash in tree view

    A single-fix patch closing a crash when collapsed sections were used in the Git panel's tree view. It corrects the collapsible-change-groups feature added days earlier in 1.16.1 — the weekly train's usual pattern of shipping then immediately repairing.

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  3. 9d ago

    Zed 1.16.2 closes a filesystem sandbox escape in extensions

    A patch release whose lead item is a potential filesystem sandbox escape when running extensions, alongside Copilot Chat auth fixes for GitHub Enterprise Cloud and a language-server settings regression. The sandbox being patched here is the extension runtime rather than the Agent's, which shows the containment work of 1.14.2 now spans two separate boundaries.

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  4. 14d ago

    Zed 1.16.1 adds Gemini 3.6 Flash and hardens the Agent terminal sandbox

    Adds Gemini 3.6 Flash, collapsible grouped Git changes, optional stash messages, Mermaid zoom and horizontal scrolling, and a setting for whether the terminal panel opens in new workspaces. Buried in the fixes is a path-traversal escape in the terminal tool, which is the sandbox from 1.14.2 being hardened; the notices also swap the OpenAI default to GPT-5.6 Sol and drop deprecated models.

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  5. 15d ago

    Zed 1.15.1 fixes the Cursor ACP agent and repeated GPG prompts

    A patch release fixing Cursor ACP agent startup, a GPG passphrase modal that appeared on every commit, extension array merging, and project search in non-Unicode files. Corrective work on the weekly train with nothing added.

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  6. 21d ago

    Zed 1.15 adds a branch-wide diff base and Project Panel drag-out

    A git.diff_base setting lets gutters and diffs compare against HEAD or the branch's merge base, alongside dragging files out of the Project Panel and JSX/TSX linked editing. The diff-base choice is the kind of Git precision that has become Zed's steadiest differentiator.

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