Zed Shell Switcher

Pick your shell on the fly inside Zed editor — without touching your default terminal.

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The Problem

VS Code has a built-in shell picker — you can switch between Bash, PowerShell, Git Bash, WSL, and more with a single click from the terminal toolbar. It is a small but genuinely useful feature that many developers rely on daily.

Zed does not have this. Zed is a fast, modern editor, but its terminal is tied to a single shell configured globally in settings. If you want to open a different shell, your only option today is to change your default shell setting, restart the terminal, do your work, and change it back. For developers who regularly jump between environments — say, PowerShell for a .NET project and WSL for a Linux build — this friction adds up fast.

This is not a criticism of Zed. It is a young, actively developed editor and this is a known, minor limitation. But until the Zed team ships a native solution, Zed Shell Switcher fills that gap — giving you an on-demand shell picker that feels native, requires no extension API, and does not touch your default configuration.

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Overview

Zed Shell Switcher adds an on-demand shell picker to Zed editor via the built-in task system.
Press Ctrl+Shift+R, choose a shell, and it opens in a new terminal tab — your default terminal is never changed.

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Supported Shells

Shell	Platform
Git Bash	Windows
PowerShell	Windows
CMD	Windows
WSL (Ubuntu)	Windows
Zsh	macOS
Bash	macOS / Linux

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Install

Windows — PowerShell

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mantitup-Org/Zed-Shell-Switcher/main/install.ps1 | iex

macOS / Linux — Bash

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mantitup-Org/Zed-Shell-Switcher/main/install.sh | bash

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How to Use

1. Open any project in Zed
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+R to open the shell picker
3. Type a shell name or navigate with arrow keys
4. Press Enter

The selected shell opens in a new terminal tab alongside your existing shell.

Why does it re-run instead of showing the picker?
Zed's default Ctrl+Shift+R binding maps to task::Rerun, which silently re-runs the last used task.
The installer automatically writes a keymap.json that rebinds it to task::Spawn — which always opens the picker. This is handled for you during install.

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Uninstall

Windows — PowerShell

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mantitup-Org/Zed-Shell-Switcher/main/uninstall.ps1 | iex

macOS / Linux — Bash

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mantitup-Org/Zed-Shell-Switcher/main/uninstall.sh | bash

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Manual Install (No Scripts)

1. Download tasks.json and keymap.json from this repository

2. Copy each file to the correct location for your OS:

   File	OS	Path
   tasks.json	Windows	%APPDATA%\Zed\tasks.json
   tasks.json	macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Zed/tasks.json
   tasks.json	Linux	~/.config/zed/tasks.json
   keymap.json	Windows	%APPDATA%\Zed\keymap.json
   keymap.json	macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Zed/keymap.json
   keymap.json	Linux	~/.config/zed/keymap.json

3. Open Zed, press Ctrl+Shift+R — done.

Note: If you already have a tasks.json or keymap.json, the installer backs each one up as .bak before overwriting. Uninstalling restores them automatically.

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Why Not a Zed Extension?

The Zed extension API does not yet support injecting entries into the task picker or modifying keybindings programmatically.
Using tasks.json + keymap.json is the most reliable and maintainable approach until that API becomes available.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

• To add a new shell entry, edit tasks.json and open a pull request.
• To report a bug or request a feature, open an issue.

git clone https://github.com/Mantitup-Org/Zed-Shell-Switcher.git
cd Zed-Shell-Switcher

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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Built by Ankan Dalui ❤️ Team Mantitup