hindsight-zed

Long-term memory for the Zed editor's AI assistant, powered by Hindsight.

hindsight-zed init wires 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 (no lag), and from your seat it's automatic.

How it works

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

• MCP context servers — Zed runs MCP servers configured under context_servers in settings.json and exposes their tools in the Agent Panel. We register 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. We add 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). Because that bridge already runs on Node.js, this setup tool is a Node CLI too — so Node.js is the only requirement.

Install

No global install needed — 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 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 contains comments (JSONC), init won't rewrite it — it prints the exact context_servers entry for you to paste instead. Use hindsight-zed init --print-only any time to see the snippet without writing.

Commands

| Command | Description | | --------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- | | hindsight-zed init | Add the MCP server + recall/retain rule | | hindsight-zed status | Show whether the server + rule are configured | | hindsight-zed uninstall | Remove the server + rule | | hindsight-zed init --print-only | Print the config to add manually |

(Prefix any of these with npx if you didn't install globally.)

What gets written

~/.config/zed/settings.json:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "hindsight": {
      "source": "custom",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://api.hindsight.vectorize.io/mcp/my-memory/",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_HINDSIGHT_API_KEY",
      ],
    },
  },
}

~/.config/zed/AGENTS.md (inside a fenced <!-- HINDSIGHT --> block that leaves the rest of the file untouched): a short rule telling the agent to recall at the start of each task and retain durable facts.

Configuration

| Setting | Env var | Default | | --------- | ----------------------- | ------------------------------------ | | API URL | HINDSIGHT_API_URL | https://api.hindsight.vectorize.io | | API token | HINDSIGHT_API_TOKEN | (none; required for Cloud) | | Bank id | HINDSIGHT_ZED_BANK_ID | zed |

These can also live in ~/.hindsight/zed.json (written by init).

Development

Requires Node.js ≥ 18.3. There are no dependencies to install.

node --test        # run the test suite

License

MIT