The new agent panel is a downgrade in many ways compared to the original assistant panel ("text threads")

[adamhl8]

There are already some good discussions started on this topic, so I'd encourage reading the following: #30187, #30240, #30280, #30261

I have many of the same concerns/frustrations with the new agent panel. To name a few:

• I can't edit or see included content - it's very common for me to include something (/file foo) and then edit it so I get a better response
• Similarly, I can't edit the assistant's response
• No syntax highlighting

One of the main reasons I switched to Zed from Cursor is because of how the original assistant panel worked. I had full control over the input and could see exactly what was being sent to the LLM.

The new agent panel is great in a lot of ways, but I find myself switching to text threads for a lot of things because interacting with code in certain ways in the agent panel is such a pain (or just outright impossible).

I agree with what was said in a couple of the of the posts I linked above which is that the agent panel and text threads UI/UX should be merged into one cohesive experience. The "raw text" interface of text threads should be how the assistant/agent is interacted with.

[linus-amg]

[ruutters]

I believe there's some aspects regarding the old panel you might not get it. It's all about complete freedom, really! LLM models are not easy to work with and having a feature such how the old panel works, we have, at least, some hope to make it do what it should do, by regularly adjusting it we can achieve our goal in a efficient and relaxed , or less stressful way.

[yuanzui-cf]

What we're talking about isn't the new functions. They can be easily combined in the old panel if the Zed team wants. We're talking about the removed but useful functions that used to be in the assistant panel. The fully control on the context is the main reason I switched to Zed. If I don't have these functions, why don't I just use Cursor? It has more plugins, themes, and functions. The new Agent panel only serves to homogenize Zed with tools like Cursor, blurring Zed's initial unique advantages.

[rafaelnl84]

I'm also on the Text Threads/Assistant Panel team. The lack of Vim motions in the new Agent Panel feels out of place in the Zed experience. It would be nice if we could at least set Text Threads as the default through settings.json.

[ruutters]

@rafaelnl84 have the team considered reintroducing multi-tab feature to Text Threads?

Please acknowledge that not everyone's day-to-day workflow requires the agentic experience for they routine workflow.

[rafaelnl84]

@ruutters I think there might be a misunderstanding - I'm not actually on the development team, but rather a Zed user who, like you, prefers the old Assistant panel. I was expressing my agreement about missing the Vim motions in the new Agent Panel and suggesting that having Text Threads as a default option would be great.