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Hi, welcome to another video.
So, Zed now has official first-class support for Gemini CLI, basically allowing the Zed AI editor to use the Gemini CLI as the agent. This has been achieved in collaboration with Zed. Most of you probably know about Zed; it's a very popular open-source editor that is not a fork. It's built from scratch, mainly in Rust, and is super fast with a very low memory footprint. They had launched their coder's agentic capabilities a while back, and I had covered it. But now we have Gemini CLI integrated into it.
What's different here is that Gemini's models are now baked right into Zed's Rust-based environment. So, it is more of a deep integration with Gemini CLI. That means you get the same speed and responsiveness that Zed has, but with all the free-tier power and features of Gemini CLI. This also makes the Gemini CLI graphical in a simple sidebar. It also means that you don't have to bounce between your terminal and your editor anymore, and the workflow feels way more natural.
Another thing it does is allow you to generate and refactor code in place, as well as get instant answers. You can also just use it as an agent in the sidebar. It allows you to follow the agent in real-time, similar to the original agent, and it also presents the changes in a robust review interface. Plus, it gives all kinds of tools to the agent.
Another thing is that Zed has not just done this for Gemini, but rather they have made their agent client protocol. This allows any agent to integrate into Zed and give it a graphical interface, while also letting you follow along as it edits the files and everything. This is quite awesome, as either the community or companies can make agents compatible with Zed. And this is probably great because if you find one agent to be better than another, then you can plug it into Zed and use it accordingly. Gemini CLI is the first one to be integrated with this protocol.
Now, let me show you how you can use it as well. But before proceeding, let me tell you about Ninja. Ninja Chat is an all-in-one AI platform where for just $11 per month, you get access to top AI models like GPT-4o, Claude 4 Sonnet, and Gemini 2.5 Pro, all in one place. I've been using Gemini for quick research. But what's really cool is their AI playground, where you can compare responses from different models side by side. Their mind map generator is a game-changer for organizing complex ideas as well. The basic plan gives you 1,000 messages, 30 images, and five videos monthly, with higher tiers available. If you need more, use my code king25 for 25% off any plan or king40 yearly for 40% off annual subscriptions. Check the link in the description to try it yourself.
Now, back to the video. Just open up Zed and make sure that you update it to the latest version, as this feature is only available in the latest version. After that, just open up the agent panel and then hit the add button, which will allow you to create a new thread with Gemini CLI. Once you hit it, it will ask you to upgrade Gemini CLI with ACP support if you haven't done that already. So, just do that. Then it will get upgraded, and you can now use the Gemini CLI agent correctly.
You get all the quality-of-life features, like the option of referencing files, rules, web pages, and everything. Also, if you make rules files, then they will also be applicable here. So, that's great. You can also enable the follow agent option, which allows you to see what it's working on with the diff and things like that as well.
So, let me show you a simple demo here. I'm not testing it, but rather just showing how it works. It should be similar to Gemini CLI in performance because the back end is just that. Anyway, let's ask it to make me a simple Minesweeper game. And let's also make sure to enable the follow agent so we can see what it's doing. What you'll see is that this will go ahead and start to work. It's really snappy, and I'm using the free tier as well, and it works well with that. As it writes a file, it will ask you for approval and everything, and you can also see the changes here. It also shows you a list of files that have been or are being edited, and you can also open up a view that is like a list with a snippet of changes. You can then accept it, and it will be applied to your files. And now you can go ahead and start it and see that this works pretty well. I really like it, for sure.
It also supports MCPs, but the MCPs that you configure in the Zed agent don't automatically port to Gemini CLI. It will only use the Gemini CLI that you have configured, meaning that in order to use any MCP, you'll have to go to the Gemini config file and configure it there. So, it might be a bit tedious, and I hope that it is streamlined with the Zed agent MCP.
Zed already has an MCP marketplace as well, where you can see and find a ton of good MCPs. I use the Context 7 and Bite Rover MCP. Both of them are also listed in the marketplace here, but you can't install them into Gemini CLI directly, and you'd have to do it manually, which I have already done in Gemini CLI. Context 7 basically helps you get the latest documentation and everything, while Bite Rover is like a memory layer that allows your coder to make and retrieve memories that are synced across your coder agents. You are also able to share those memories across your team with your teammates, and that is why I use it. You can plug it in as an MCP in almost anything and then use it accordingly. I've been using it a lot and have this configured here as well.
Rules also work the same way, and the Zed agent rules are not synced as of now. So, you'll have to manually make the Gemini markdown or some file along those lines. You can also make slash commands, but they won't be interactive, meaning that you won't see suggestions when you type the first letter. But if you type the full slash command, then it will work. So, yeah, there's that.
It is not fully fleshed out, but still, it's the first iteration, and I believe that these features will be added soon enough and will become a bit more polished. Also, some things are mentioned in their blog post, but I can't see any way to access these features. For example, they say that you can highlight any code and Gemini will know about it, but when I do that, I don't get any pointer or anything, and it also doesn't recognize it. Similarly, they say that in your code, you can write a comment, hit a hotkey, and get a function generated instantly, but that also doesn't work. And there's no way that I found to configure a hotkey. Their docs also don't have any info about it. So, I was wondering about it, but couldn't figure it out. If you guys know if it even exists, then please let me know in the comments because I tried hard but couldn't figure it out. It has a long way to go, and we'll see how it proceeds. Overall, it's pretty cool.
Anyway, share your thoughts below and subscribe to the channel. You can also donate via Super Thanks option or join the channel as well and get some perks. I'll see you in the next video. Bye.
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