Use Xantly with Zed

Zed is the high-performance Rust-native editor from the Atom team. Its assistant panel supports an openai_compatible provider block, drop in Xantly and every inline chat, edit, and inline assistant call routes through smart routing + cache + memory.

Prerequisites

• Zed installed, download from zed.dev
• A Xantly API key, create one

Setup

Open your Zed settings (Cmd+, on macOS, Ctrl+, on Linux) and add an openai_compatible provider under language_models:

{
  "language_models": {
    "openai_compatible": {
      "Xantly": {
        "api_url": "https://api.xantly.com/v1",
        "available_models": [
          {
            "name": "xantly/auto-quality",
            "display_name": "Xantly Quality",
            "max_tokens": 200000,
            "max_completion_tokens": 8192
          },
          {
            "name": "xantly/auto-value",
            "display_name": "Xantly Value",
            "max_tokens": 128000,
            "max_completion_tokens": 4096
          },
          {
            "name": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6",
            "display_name": "Claude Sonnet 4.6",
            "max_tokens": 200000,
            "max_completion_tokens": 8192
          },
          {
            "name": "openai/gpt-5.4",
            "display_name": "GPT-5.4",
            "max_tokens": 200000,
            "max_completion_tokens": 8192
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "assistant": {
    "default_model": {
      "provider": "openai_compatible/Xantly",
      "model": "xantly/auto-quality"
    }
  }
}

Set your API key via the Zed UI (Cmd+Shift+P → "Assistant: Configure Provider" → paste xantly_sk_...) or export it:

export OPENAI_COMPATIBLE_XANTLY_API_KEY=xantly_sk_...

Restart Zed. The model picker in the Assistant panel now shows Xantly models.

Using the Assistant panel

• Cmd+R: Open the Assistant panel.
• Cmd+Enter: Send prompt.
• Select code + Cmd+Enter: Inline assist on the selection.
• / commands: /edit, /file, /tab to reference context.

Everything streams through Xantly, routed model, cache status, and cost all appear in your Xantly dashboard.

Inline assistant (edit in place)

Select a block of code, press Cmd+Enter, and describe the change:

Convert this function to async/await and add error handling.

Zed's inline assistant fires an edit request against Xantly's auto-quality (via the default_model setting), applies the diff, shows you the preview.

Model choice

Verify

In the Assistant panel:

Reply with just the word "pong".

Check your Xantly dashboard, the request logs with routed-to model, cache status, USD cost.

What you get

• Fast editor + smart routing. Zed is the fastest mainstream editor; Xantly adds smart routing without slowing it down (12ms p50 overhead).
• Semantic cache. Inline refactors often re-ask similar prompts, cache returns instantly.
• Waterfall fallback. Mid-edit provider outages don't kill the inline assist.
• Memory. Set X-Xantly-Memory-Mode: recall via... (see below) to opt in.
• Cost per edit tracked in your dashboard.

Gotchas

api_url with /v1. Zed's openai_compatible provider expects the path-less OpenAI-compatible base. Include /v1.

available_models is required. Zed doesn't hit /v1/models to discover the catalog, you list what you want available in the settings. Add whatever Xantly slugs you use.

Custom headers. Zed doesn't yet expose a custom-headers setting on the openai_compatible provider, so X-Xantly-Memory-Mode can't be set per-call from Zed natively. Workaround: use a CLI tool for memory-heavy workflows, or wait for upstream Zed support.

Max tokens. max_tokens in Zed config is the context window; max_completion_tokens is the generation limit. Set both to match the model.

Model picker caches. After adding new entries, restart Zed, it doesn't hot-reload the models list.

Next steps

• OpenAI SDK (Python), for Zed extension authors building custom LLM features.
• Cline, VS Code equivalent with more extensive agent features.
• Continue.dev, also supports Zed.
• Bring Your Own Key, route Zed through your own OpenAI/Anthropic credits via Xantly.