Zed is a high-performance code editor written in Rust, with a built-in AI assistant. You configure OpenAI-compatible providers in settings.json, so pointing the endpoint at CrossModel lets you use the whole catalog inside the editor.

Quickstart

1. Create an API key

Sign in to the Console and create a key that starts with cm- on the API Keys page. The key is shown only once, so copy it somewhere safe.

2. Edit settings.json

Press Cmd+, (macOS) or Ctrl+, (Linux) to open settings, or run zed: open settings from the command palette, and add:

{
  "language_models": {
    "openai_compatible": {
      "CrossModel": {
        "api_url": "https://api.crossmodel.ai/v1",
        "available_models": [
          {
            "name": "deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro",
            "display_name": "DeepSeek V4 Pro",
            "max_tokens": 65536
          },
          {
            "name": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6",
            "display_name": "Claude Sonnet 4.6",
            "max_tokens": 200000
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Field reference:

3. Set the API key environment variable

Zed doesn't store the API key in the config file — it reads it from an environment variable. The name is the provider name, uppercased, with _API_KEY appended.

For the provider name "CrossModel", that's CROSSMODEL_API_KEY:

macOS / Linux (add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

export CROSSMODEL_API_KEY=cm-YOUR_KEY

Windows (PowerShell):

$env:CROSSMODEL_API_KEY = "cm-YOUR_KEY"

Restart Zed so the environment variable takes effect.

4. Choose a model

Open Zed's AI panel (Cmd+? or the right sidebar), click the model selector, and pick a model under CrossModel to get started.

Adding more models

Just append more objects to the available_models array. Find the full list of model IDs and context window sizes in the model catalog.

Troubleshooting