Zed 1.28.1 Ships Background Git Fetching and Smarter AI Agent Context

Zed 1.28.1 is now available as a stable update for macOS, Linux, and Windows. The release adds optional background Git fetching, an adjustable Git Graph, font zoom in diffs and terminals, and fixes for agent context handling, remote workspaces, downloads, and startup behavior.

Remote refs update in the background

Zed can periodically fetch the upstream remote for the current branch and the remote associated with the repository’s default branch. This keeps remote-tracking refs such as origin/main current while leaving the working tree and local branches unchanged. Merges and rebases remain manual.

Automatic fetching remains disabled by default, avoiding scheduled network requests on metered connections and private mirrors. Enable it in Zed’s settings with:

{
  "git": {
    "auto_fetch": {
      "enabled": true,
      "interval_secs": 60
    }
  }
}

When interval_secs is omitted, Zed uses a 60-second interval.

The Refs column becomes adjustable

The Git Graph’s Refs column can now be resized or hidden from the column header’s context menu. Repositories with many branches and tags can allocate more room to ref names, while commit-focused views can remove the column.

• Files can be dragged from the Git Panel into terminal and editor panes.
• The worktree picker can search by branch name.

Diffs and terminals zoom on demand

With mouse_wheel_zoom enabled, diff views and terminal panes now support mouse-wheel font zoom. The shortcut is Cmd plus scroll on macOS and Ctrl plus scroll on Linux and Windows, making temporary size adjustments available during reviews, pairing sessions, and screen sharing.

Agent compaction uses context more efficiently

Zed’s agent compacts long conversations by summarizing older context before a model reaches its input limit. Version 1.28.1 fixes several cases that could waste tokens or allow a long turn to exceed that limit:

• The agent’s read_file tool truncates individual lines longer than 2,000 characters, limiting the context consumed by minified files and generated output.
• Automatic compaction can run more than once during a long agent turn.
• Compaction requests for supported OpenAI and xAI providers use cached input tokens where available, reducing uncached input usage.
• ChatGPT subscription models now reuse the prompt cache during compaction.

Platform-specific failures get fixes

• Window startup is faster on Linux systems with NVIDIA GPUs.
• On Windows, launching Zed while another instance is running no longer blocks restoration of the previous session.
• SSH workspaces no longer fail with Missing remote shell when the remote shell’s startup process reads from standard input.
• Remote terminals and tasks now work on Windows SSH servers configured to use Nushell as the default shell.

Failed downloads leave less debris

Zed now applies checksum verification consistently to language server and agent downloads. It also rejects failed HTTP responses and removes partial artifacts, reducing the chance that an interrupted transfer leaves an incomplete language server or executable installed.

Check older upgrade requirements

Version 1.28.1 is available through Zed’s in-app updater or the Zed download page. The release introduces no breaking changes, and background Git fetching remains opt-in.

Developers upgrading from version 1.26 or earlier should account for two changes introduced in 1.27.0:

• Zed now requires macOS 12 Monterey or later, ending support for macOS Catalina and Big Sur.
• Agent checkpoints and the Restore Checkpoint button have been removed. Agent edits can instead be rejected inline or reverted through Git.

Installations already running version 1.27 can adopt 1.28.1 without configuration changes. The update has the most direct effect on Git Graph users, long agent sessions, SSH development, and the affected Linux and Windows setups.