Warp vs Zed | agentconfig.ing

Warp vs ZedComparisonUpdated 2026-03-16

SUMMARY

Warp (Terminal) uses markdown configuration while Zed (Editor) uses markdown. They differ on 3 of 11 compared features. Both tools provide AI-assisted development but take different approaches to project configuration.

FEATURE COMPARISON

Feature	Warp	Zed	Notes
Config format	markdown	markdown
Hierarchy support	✓	✓	Whether config files can be placed at multiple directory levels
Global config	✗	✓	User-wide configuration outside any project
Project config	✓	✓
Subdirectory scoping	✓	✗	Config files in subdirectories that apply only to that subtree
File inclusion / imports	✗	✗	Ability to include or reference other files from config
Ignore file	✗	✗
IDE integration	Terminal	Editor
Schema / structure	Free-form (Markdown)	Free-form (Markdown)	Whether config uses structured schema or free-form content
Git committed	✓	✓	Whether primary config files are intended to be version-controlled
Encoding	UTF-8	UTF-8

FILE MAPPING

Purpose	Warp	Zed
Project instructions	AGENTS.md	Rules Library

SIDE-BY-SIDE CODE SAMPLES

Warp

AGENTS.md

markdown

# Project Rules

## Stack
- Go 1.23 with Chi router
- PostgreSQL 16 with pgx driver
- Redis for caching and rate limiting

## Commands
- make dev — Start with hot reload (air)
- make test — Run go test ./...
- make lint — Run golangci-lint
- make migrate — Run goose migrations

## Conventions
- Use context.Context as first param in all functions
- Structured logging with slog
- Errors wrap with fmt.Errorf("funcName: %w", err)
- Table-driven tests with t.Run subtests

Zed

.rules

markdown

# Project Rules

## Stack
- TypeScript 5.x with strict mode
- React 19 with Server Components
- Tailwind CSS v4
- Drizzle ORM with PostgreSQL

## Code Style
- Prefer named exports over default exports
- Use "use client" directive only when interactivity is required
- Colocate tests in __tests__ directories next to source files
- Use Zod for all runtime validation

## Architecture
- App Router with nested layouts in app/
- Server actions in app/actions/
- Database schema in db/schema.ts
- Shared utilities in lib/

## Commands
- Dev server: pnpm dev
- Type check: pnpm typecheck
- Test: pnpm test
- Lint: pnpm lint

KEY DIFFERENCES

1. Global config

Warp: Not supported. Zed: Supported.

2. Subdirectory scoping

Warp: Supported. Zed: Not supported.

3. IDE integration

Warp: Terminal. Zed: Editor.

WHICH SHOULD I USE?

Recommendation

Choose based on your IDE/CLI preference. If you use Warp, configure AGENTS.md. If you use Zed, configure .rules. Many projects include config files for multiple tools so each team member can use their preferred editor.

PORTABILITY TIP

sync-instructions.sh

bash

# Maintain a single source of truth:
cp AI-INSTRUCTIONS.md CLAUDE.md
cp AI-INSTRUCTIONS.md .cursorrules
cp AI-INSTRUCTIONS.md AGENTS.md