Settings

You can change the appearance, change Git behavior, and connect provider accounts in Settings.

To open Settings, press Ctrl+,. You can also click File > Settings on Windows and Linux, or Zide > Settings… on macOS.

Find a setting

Type in Search settings… above the categories to find a setting when you do not know its category. Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on macOS) to go to the field and select its text.

The results replace the category list while the field has text. Each result shows the setting’s name and its location, for example Editor > Style > Appearance.
Search finds setting names, their descriptions, their locations, and some related words. For example, zoom finds UI Scale. Results whose name matches come first. Case does not matter.
Search does not find the values you entered, such as your Git user name or account names.
Click a result to open its page. Zide scrolls to the setting and briefly highlights it. If the setting is in a closed section, the section opens. Opening a result does not change any value.
The search stays after you open a result, so you can check other results.
No results shows when nothing matches. Click the x in the field to clear the search and show the categories again.

With the keyboard, press Down in the field to move to the results. Use Up, Down, Home, and End to move between them, and Enter to open one. Enter in the field opens the first result. Esc in the results returns to the field.

Drag the line between the categories and the settings page to make the category list wider. Double-click the line to fit the list to its text, up to about 40% of the window. Zide keeps the width after a restart.

You can change the settings for the following categories.

Accounts

Zide Account: Manage your Zide subscription, credits, and perpetual license.
Git Accounts: Connect and manage accounts for GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket Cloud.

AI

Zide Assist

Conversations: Manage conversation settings for Zide Assist.
Context Management: Determine how long Zide Assist keeps a long session going, what it carries, and what it replaces with a summary.
MCP Connections: Connect Zide Assist to external Model Context Protocol servers.
Safety & Permissions: Set safety and permissions for Zide Assist.
Relay: Watch and control your device’s live Zide Assist sessions at relay.zide.dev.
Usage Limits: Set how much Zide Assist can spend or do in a single response.

Other AI Services

App Services: Choose the model for each app-level AI feature.
CLI Agents: Manage settings for command line AI tools.

Editor

Style: Manage the file editor appearance and default behavior.
Language Servers: Manage and install language servers.

The minimap is not set here. To change it, choose a rendering under Minimap in the right-click menu of the content or of the minimap, or in More actions where the tab has one. Zide saves separate choices for issue discussions, pull request and merge request conversations, diffs, file editors, document previews, Zide Assist sessions, and terminals. Each choice applies across tabs and projects and is kept after a restart.

Appearance

Colors: Choose the theme for the application, the editor, and the terminal. See Colors and themes.
Themes: Make, change, import, and export themes.
Interface Sizing: UI Scale adjusts the interface from 70% to 130% in 5% steps, with 100% as the default. Changes apply to the main and detached windows, including their Web Browser tabs. For List Density, choose Comfortable or Compact to change list row spacing across projects without hiding details.

Other Settings

Application: Set default startup behavior, CLI command, and image privacy.
Browser: Set default search engine and homepage for the built-in browser.
Git: Choose how Zide finds Git, set default merge tool and sync behavior, set up commit and tag signing, and edit your global Git configuration. See Git command-line tool, Signing, and Global Git configuration.
Layout: Navigation contains project and menu bar placement and activity labels. Panes & Tab Bars contains pane defaults and controls.
Input: Manage trackpad input settings, and choose whether lists show row checkboxes in activity panels and in tabs. See Row checkboxes.
Projects: Choose whether Zide automatically opens Terminal and Zide Assist when you open a project. Zide Assist opens only when it is available for the signed-in account.
Terminal: Edit the appearance and behavior of the terminal. Save terminal history and Storage limit per project control whether Zide saves terminal output, and how much each project keeps. See Save terminal output.
Script Runner: Edit the behavior of the Script Runner.
Developer: Debug settings for troubleshooting.

Colors and themes

Open Settings > Appearance > Colors to choose a theme in Current Theme. A theme sets the colors of the application, the editor, and the terminal. The change applies at once.

Automatic uses Zide Dark or Zide Light to match the dark or light mode of your computer. When your computer asks for more contrast, it uses Zide Dark High Contrast or Zide Light High Contrast.
Every other theme stays the same when the mode or contrast of your computer changes. While a Windows contrast theme is on, it replaces the colors of Zide.
Click the reset icon next to Current Theme to return to Zide Dark.
Editor > Style and Terminal show the theme in use. Click Change in Appearance to open the Colors page.
The Preview card below shows the current colors on sample controls, code with changed, added, and removed lines, and terminal output.

Color vision

If you have color blindness, select it in Color Vision on the Colors page. Zide then changes the colors that show meaning, so they are easier to tell apart. The text below Color Vision tells what the selected option changes. This works with every theme, including your own.

Red-green color blindness: added lines, success, and passed results are blue. Removed lines, errors, and failed results are orange. The mark for a changed line in the editor gutter is amber.
Blue-yellow color blindness: the mark for a changed line in the editor gutter is amber, so it is different from the green mark for an added line.

Click the reset icon next to Color Vision to return to Standard. Terminal output that uses the standard red and green colors follows Color Vision. Exact colors that a program sets, such as RGB colors, do not change.

With full color vision, these changes are very subtle. To see their effect, set Show Preview As below the preview to a type of color blindness. The preview then shows how the colors look to a person with that type. Keep that choice and change Color Vision to compare. Show Preview As changes only the preview.

Make or change a theme

Open Settings > Appearance > Themes, or click Manage themes on the Colors page. Click Use on a theme to change to it. The theme in use shows In use. You cannot change a built-in theme. Click More actions, then Duplicate, to make a copy that you can change.

New Theme makes a theme from a copy of a theme in the list. The new theme is not in use yet. To use it, click Use on its row or in the notice.
Edit on one of your own themes opens Edit Theme. Select Application, Editor, or Terminal, then type a color or click its swatch. The preview shows your changes. The rest of Zide does not change until you click Apply.
Contrast details below a color shows the colors that appear with it. A warning triangle shows that a pair has less contrast than recommended. When you click Apply, Edit Theme lists the pairs that are hard to read. Click Adjust to change a color until it is easy to read, Revert to go back to the saved colors, or Apply Anyway to keep your colors.
Edit Theme does not apply colors that make Zide unreadable, such as text that is almost the same color as its background.
More actions on a theme has Use, Duplicate, and Export Theme. Your own themes also have Edit, Rename, and Delete. If you delete the theme in use, Zide changes to Zide Dark or Zide Light.

Export Theme saves one theme to a file. Import Theme adds a theme from a file. An imported theme is not in use yet. To use it, click Use on its row or in the notice. If a theme with the same name exists, select Replace, Import as a copy, or Do not import. Zide imports one theme at a time, so it does not import a file that has more than one theme.

Export Settings and Import Settings include your theme choice and the theme it uses.

If you cannot read Zide

If a theme you choose is hard to read, Zide asks Keep these colors? Click Keep to keep the theme. If you do nothing, Zide goes back to the previous theme after 15 seconds.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0 (Cmd+Option+Shift+0 on macOS) or click View > Reset to Zide Dark.
On Windows and macOS, hold Shift while Zide starts. On every platform, you can set the environment variable ZIDE_SAFE_THEME=1 before you start Zide. Zide then starts with Zide Dark for this session only. Your saved theme does not change, and Settings shows Use Saved Theme to go back to it.
On Windows, you can turn on a contrast theme in Windows Settings > Accessibility > Contrast themes. While it is on, Zide uses its colors, so you can open Settings and choose another theme.
If Settings shows Restore Zide Dark, the theme settings were saved by a newer version of Zide and cannot be changed here. Click Restore Zide Dark to replace them with Zide Dark. Themes and choices that this version of Zide cannot read are lost.
If nothing else works, close Zide and move the files theme.json and theme.last-good.json out of the Zide settings folder to a safe place. Zide then starts with Zide Dark and no saved themes. To get your themes and choices back, close Zide and move the files back. The folder is %APPDATA%\zide on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/zide on macOS, and ~/.config/zide on Linux.

Git command-line tool

The Git category begins with a Git command-line tool card. Zide uses this tool for cloning, compatibility sync, submodules, subtrees, and some advanced Git features. Editing and many local Git features still work without it.

The card shows the result of the latest check.

Row	What it shows
Status	Whether Zide can run Git.
Version	The version Zide found. This row is blank until Zide has a version to show.
Executable	The executable path Zide found or you chose. This row is blank until Zide has a path to show.

The status includes a helper sentence when you need to take action.

Status	Helper text
Available	No helper text.
Not found	Zide couldn’t find Git. Install Git or choose an executable.
Selected path not found	Zide couldn’t find the selected executable. Choose another file or use automatic detection.
Permission denied	Zide found Git, but this computer didn’t allow Zide to run it.
Couldn’t run Git	Zide found Git, but it didn’t start correctly.
Couldn’t check Git	Shows the error from the failed check.

Use the actions below the rows to change or repeat the check.

Choose executable… opens a file picker. On Windows, the picker shows .exe and .cmd files.
Check again checks for Git again. The button shows Checking… while the check runs.
Use automatic detection appears after you choose an executable. Click it to let Zide find Git again.

On macOS, Zide does not check for Git when you open Settings. The card shows Not checked and asks you to select Check again. Running /usr/bin/git --version can open Apple’s Command Line Tools installer, and opening a settings page must not trigger a system installer.

Signing

The Signing card sets the signing defaults for all repositories. It edits your global Git configuration. To override these defaults for one repository, use Signing in Git Overview.

Sign commits turns commit signing on or off (commit.gpgSign).
Sign tags sets which tags are signed: Never, Tags with a message, or All tags (tag.forceSignAnnotated and tag.gpgSign). Sign commits does not apply to tags.
Format selects GPG or SSH (gpg.format). Zide also shows X.509 if it is already configured.
Key lists the keys Zide finds (user.signingKey). GPG lists your secret keys that can sign. SSH lists the .pub files in your .ssh folder and the keys your SSH agent holds. For SSH, Browse… selects another key file. A key that is set but not found stays in the list.
Program sets the signing program for the format. Leave it empty to use the program Git finds. Browse… selects a program file.

Each control saves when you change it. Zide writes only standard Git configuration, so command-line Git uses the same settings. Your private keys and passphrases stay with GPG, SSH, and their agents.

Click Test Signing to sign sample data with the current settings. The test does not create a commit, move a branch, or change staged files. Your signing program or agent may ask for a passphrase. The result shows whether signing worked. Your Git host verifies signatures separately.

Text below a control identifies inherited values, for example Inherited from System configuration. If the global configuration file has unsaved changes in the editor, these controls cannot save changes. Save or discard the editor changes first.

Global Git configuration

The Git category ends with a Global Git configuration card. It edits the configuration Git applies to every repository, using the same searchable key/value table as a project’s Repository Config tab.

Global and project configuration

Global Git configuration belongs to you, not to a project, so it is edited here rather than in any project’s Repository Config tab. A project’s Repository Config tab edits that repository’s Local configuration and shows global values as read-only context. The card works with no project open at all, and shows the same values whichever project you came from.

The global write target

Git reads several configuration files, but it writes only one. That one file is the global write target, and it is what this card edits.

Zide picks it the way Git does.

If the GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL environment variable is set, that file is the target.
Otherwise Zide considers the traditional ~/.gitconfig and the XDG $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config.
If only the XDG file exists, that is the target.
Otherwise the traditional ~/.gitconfig is the target, whether or not it exists yet.

If you start Zide with GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL set, commits use the identity and signing settings from that file too. Repository and Worktree overrides still take precedence.

The Writing to row shows the selected path, as selectable text you can copy. Show in File Manager reveals it; if the file does not exist yet, it opens the nearest folder that does.

Read and change values

The table lists every value in force at global scope. Search config keys and the Show: Common / All toggle narrow the list, and Add Entry sits directly above the list it adds to.

Click Edit on a row to change that key. Each of its values gets its own field with Save, Cancel, and Delete, and + Add value adds another, because Git configuration is genuinely multivalued, and keys such as credential.helper legitimately repeat. Done leaves edit mode, and asks before discarding a field that still holds unsaved text. This is the same editor described in Repository Config, so everything there applies here too.

Values Git reads but this card does not write

Because Git reads more than it writes, the target is not your complete effective configuration. When both the XDG and traditional files exist, Git reads both and writes the traditional one. System configuration is machine-wide, and files pulled in with include.path are read but never written.

Those values are not hidden. They appear in the table, and while you edit a key Other configured values lists them read-only, in precedence order, with plain-language status text saying which value Git uses now. Editing the key here writes a global value that overrides them, exactly as git config --global would.

Create the file on first save

If the target does not exist, the card says so and the table starts empty. Nothing is written until you add your first value, which creates the folder if needed and then the file. Opening the card, opening the file as text, and revealing it in the file manager never create it.

Edit the file as text

Open as Text opens the write target in Zide’s ordinary file editor, so you can edit comments, ordering, and sections the table does not model. If the file is already open, that editor is focused rather than opened a second time; otherwise it opens under Standalone Files, the App Tab that holds files no open project contains. In the horizontal App Tab layout that tab is an icon with no text label, so the editor’s own title and path row identify the file.

Because it is the normal file editor, it brings everything that comes with it: unsaved-change tracking, Save All, quit protection, external-change detection, and encoding, byte-order-mark, and line-ending preservation. Comments, ordering, duplicate keys, empty values, and keys Zide does not recognize all survive a round trip, and Zide does not validate Git syntax on save.

The action is unavailable while the target does not exist, and says so: there is no text to open, and opening it must not be what creates the file. Add a value first.

The two views stay in step

The table and the text editor never overwrite one another silently.

Saving in the text editor refreshes the table.
Changing a value in the table reloads the text editor when it has no unsaved changes.
While the text editor does have unsaved changes, the table refuses to write and tells you which file is in the way. Save or revert that editor first.

Setting the merge tool from the card above this one writes the same file, so the table refreshes for that too, and so does every open project’s Repository Config tab, which shows global values as read-only context.

Changes made outside Zide, such as git config --global in a terminal or another editor, are picked up the next time the card reads the file, which is whenever you open the Git category or return to the Settings tab. Nothing is cached and nothing needs a restart, but the global write target sits outside every project, so no watcher pushes such a change to a card that is already on screen.

When the configuration cannot be read

If the target cannot be located or cannot be read, the card shows the reason with a Retry action. Writing to and Show in File Manager stay available so you can reach the file another way.