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.

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.

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, and edit your global Git configuration. See Git command-line tool and Global Git configuration.
• Layout: Edit project and menu bar placement, activity labels, pane defaults and controls, and UI scale.
• Input: Manage trackpad input settings.
• 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.
• Script Runner: Edit the behavior of the Script Runner.
• Developer: Debug settings for troubleshooting.

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.

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.

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

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.