/hindsight-docs

Zed

Long-term memory for the Zed editor's AI assistant, powered by Hindsight. One command connects Zed's Agent Panel to the Hindsight MCP server and adds a rule telling the agent to use it — so it recalls relevant memory at the start of a task and retains durable facts as it goes. Recall happens at query time against your actual message, and from your seat it's automatic.

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How It Works

Zed has no pre-prompt hook, but it supports two things this integration uses:

• MCP context servers: Zed runs MCP servers configured under context_servers in settings.json and surfaces their tools in the Agent Panel. hindsight-zed registers the Hindsight MCP server there, giving the agent recall / retain / reflect tools.
• A global instructions file (~/.config/zed/AGENTS.md) that Zed includes in every conversation. The integration adds a small rule there telling the agent to recall first and retain what it learns.

Zed doesn't yet have native HTTP-MCP transport, so the server is connected through the mcp-remote stdio bridge (run via npx), which means Node.js must be installed.

Setup

hindsight-zed is a zero-dependency Node CLI — Node.js is the only requirement (already needed for the mcp-remote bridge). Run it straight from npm with npx:

npx @vectorize-io/hindsight-zed init --api-token YOUR_HINDSIGHT_API_KEY --bank-id my-memory

Or install it globally for a persistent command:

npm install -g @vectorize-io/hindsight-zed
hindsight-zed init --api-token YOUR_HINDSIGHT_API_KEY --bank-id my-memory

init adds the hindsight MCP server to ~/.config/zed/settings.json and the recall/retain rule to ~/.config/zed/AGENTS.md. Restart Zed, open the Agent Panel, and the hindsight server should show a green dot.

Use a Hindsight Cloud key, or point at a self-hosted server with --api-url http://localhost:8888 (no token needed for an open local server). If your settings.json has comments (JSONC), init prints the entry to paste rather than rewriting the file — or run hindsight-zed init --print-only anytime.

Commands

Note

Recall and retain run through MCP tools the agent calls, guided by the always-on rule. This makes recall query-time precise (no lag), with the tradeoff that it relies on the agent following the "recall first" instruction rather than the editor enforcing it.

See the package README for full configuration options.