Image: Zed Industries / zed.dev Zed 1.16.0 Preview: Gemini 3.6 Flash, Mermaid Zoom, and a Terminal Panel Setting
The Zed 1.16.0 preview adds Google's Gemini 3.6 Flash model, zooming and horizontal scrolling for Mermaid diagrams, and a new setting to control whether the terminal panel opens automatically.
Zed released version 1.16.0 in the preview channel on August 12. The update adds Gemini 3.6 Flash as a supported Google AI model, makes Mermaid diagrams interactive with zoom and horizontal scroll, and introduces a setting to stop the terminal panel from opening automatically in new workspaces.
AI changes
Gemini 3.6 Flash is now available through Zed’s Google AI provider. The release also improves the terminal tool’s ability to target specific subdirectories within a project, which matters for monorepos where the agent might otherwise run commands in the wrong working directory. Agent Panel terminals now shrink after being cleared rather than holding their height.
The default OpenAI model for subscription users was also changed to GPT-5.6 Sol.
Diagram and markdown improvements
Mermaid diagrams now support zooming and horizontal scrolling — a long-requested feature for anyone who drops large flowcharts or sequence diagrams into notes or documentation. Wide Markdown tables also get horizontal scrollbars, which addresses a persistent readability problem where wide tables either clipped or blew out the document width.
Git panel
A new optional prompt when stashing changes lets you add a stash message. The context menu in the Git Panel gained “Copy Path” and “Copy Relative Path” options.
Terminal
A new terminal.starts_open setting controls whether the Terminal Panel opens automatically in new workspaces. Previously Zed always opened the terminal panel on launch; this gives teams and individuals who prefer to keep it closed a way to set that preference persistently.
Language support
Python dunder variables get dedicated theme highlighting via new theme attributes. Opening .bat or .cmd files now prompts an installation suggestion for the windows-batch language extension rather than failing silently.
Bug fixes
The release resolves 14+ issues, including a terminal path traversal security fix, Project Panel undo/redo file safety, word movement punctuation handling, SSH connection stability, keybinding conflicts, symbol renaming file path updates, Markdown preview rendering over remote connections, and binary file detection errors.
The full release notes are at zed.dev/releases/preview/latest.