Skip to content
Zide Zide

Quick start

You can use the following guide to quickly set up and use Zide. You can connect your Git host accounts, connect a CLI agent, open your first repository or folder, and navigate the Zide interface.

Connect your Git provider accounts to Zide

You can connect your GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket accounts to Zide. Zide supports other Git providers through Git Credential Manager for basic Git operations only. To connect a Git host account, complete the following steps.

  1. In Zide, click File > Settings.
  2. In Settings, click Providers.
  3. In Providers, click Add Accounts.
  4. In the Add Account dialog, select a provider.
  5. Follow the on-screen instructions to connect your GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket account to Zide.

The DevOps tab is available once your provider account is connected to Zide. To connect a GitHub account, see GitHub authentication. To connect a GitLab account, see GitLab authentication. To connect a Bitbucket account, see Bitbucket authentication.

Add a local repository or folder

When you first launch Zide, the Open Folder tab shows a welcome screen with three cards: open a project that is already on your computer, clone a repository from your git host, or start something new. The I’m starting something new card opens the New Project Wizard, which creates a project and builds it with you in Zide Assist. A quiet Just create an empty folder link is available when you only want an empty folder. Click the card that matches what you want to do. After you have opened a folder, the Open Folder tab instead lists your open, recent, and favorite folders, and keeps a New Project Wizard row available. For more information, see Add a repository or folder.

You can also add a local repository or folder at any time by completing the following steps.

  1. Click File > Open Folder.
  2. Select a repository folder. Zide creates a project tab that contains information such as files, branches, and commits of the selected repository.

You can open multiple repositories and folders in Zide, with each appearing in a separate project tab. For more information about adding repositories and folders, see Add a repository or folder.

Zide uses a multi-pane layout with two types of tabs, project tabs and content tabs. Project tabs represent each open folder, repository, and Git worktree. Click on a project tab to switch between tabs. For more information about project tabs, see Project tabs.

The activity panel contains browsing lists such as Files, Commits, Issues, and Staging. Selecting an item opens its detail in a content tab in a pane. For more information, see Content tabs and Panes and layout.

You can drag any content tab to the edge of a pane to have multiple tabs open at the same time. For example, you can review an issue while editing code, or compare branches while viewing the commit history. For more information about pane management and drag-to-split, see Panes and layout.

Make and commit changes

You can make changes to files in a repository and commit those changes with Zide. To edit and commit files, complete the following steps.

  1. Click Tools > File Browser.
  2. In the Files activity, click a file to open it in a content tab.
  3. In the File view, click Edit.
  4. After you make your edits, click Git > Staging.
  5. In the Staging activity, click the Stage icon next to each unstaged file to stage the file.
  6. Enter a commit message and click Commit Staged File.

Work with issues

You can navigate and manage issues from your repositories. To see all issues in a repository, click DevOps > Issues. To create a new issue, click DevOps > New Issue.

Use Zide Assist

Zide Assist is a built-in AI assistant that can answer questions about your repository, edit files, and run commands as part of your workflow. To start a Zide Assist session, complete the following steps.

  1. Click Assist > New Session.
  2. In the Zide Assist tab, enter a prompt in the message box.
  3. Click Send.

You can open multiple Zide Assist sessions at the same time, each in its own tab. To select an AI model, click the Model dropdown in the Zide Assist toolbar. The picker shows each model’s ratings, specifications, and pricing. For more information, see Zide Assist.

Connect your CLI agent to Zide

To connect a Command Line Interface (CLI) agent to Zide, complete the following steps.

  1. Click Tools > Chat with CLI Agent > CLI Agent Profiles.
  2. In the CLI Agent Profiles dialog, click Auto-detect. If a CLI agent is not detected, ensure that your CLI agent is configured and active on your local machine.
  3. Click Done.

For more information about connecting CLI agents, see Connect a CLI agent.