Building Zed for macOS

Repository

Clone down the Zed repository.

Dependencies

• Install Rust
• Install Xcode from the macOS App Store, or from the Apple Developer website. Note this requires a developer account.

Ensure you launch XCode after installing, and install the MacOS components, which is the default option.

• Install Xcode command line tools

  bash

  1	xcode-select --install

• Ensure that the Xcode command line tools are using your newly installed copy of Xcode:

  1	sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

• Install the Rust wasm toolchain:

  bash

  1	rustup target add wasm32-wasi

Backend Dependencies

If you are developing collaborative features of Zed, you'll need to install the dependencies of zed's collab server:

• Install Postgres

• Install Livekit and Foreman

  bash

  1	brew install livekit foreman

Alternatively, if you have Docker installed you can bring up all the collab dependencies using Docker Compose:

Building Zed from Source

Once you have the dependencies installed, you can build Zed using Cargo.

For a debug build:

For a release build:

And to run the tests:

Troubleshooting

Error compiling metal shaders

Try sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Cargo errors claiming that a dependency is using unstable features

Try cargo clean and cargo build.

Error: 'dispatch/dispatch.h' file not found

If you encounter an error similar to:

This file is part of Xcode. Ensure you have installed the Xcode command line tools and set the correct path:

Additionally, set the BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS environment variable:

Then clean and rebuild the project: