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Zed

View as MarkdownOpen in Claude

Give Zed’s AI assistant real-time web search, content extraction, and citation-backed research through the You.com MCP Server.

Install our docs MCP server

This documentation ships with a Docs MCP Server that gives any MCP-enabled agent a searchDocs tool to search every page here and get back relevant passages with source URLs—no API key required. Point your client at https://you.com/docs/_mcp/server. See the Docs MCP Server guide for setup and examples.

Quick Setup

1

Open Zed Settings

Press ⌘ , (macOS) or Ctrl , (Linux) to open settings.json. Add the You.com server under context_servers:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "you-com": {
      "source": "custom",
      "url": "https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free"
    }
  }
}

Zed gotcha: Zed calls MCP servers context servers in its settings schema. The key is context_servers, not mcpServers or mcp.servers. Also: no "type": "http" field—Zed infers transport from the presence of url vs command.

This uses the free profile: keyless you-search and you-discover, 100 queries per day, no signup.

2

Reload Zed

Zed picks up MCP config changes on save, but a restart (⌘ Q then reopen) is more reliable.

3

Verify the Tools Are Available

Open the assistant panel (⌘ ?) and check the tools menu. you-com should appear with you-search and you-discover available.

Higher Rate Limits

For higher limits plus you-contents and you-balance on /mcp. you-research and you-finance need the dedicated paths or an explicit allowlist:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "you-com": {
      "source": "custom",
      "url": "https://api.you.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <YDC_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Get a key at you.com/platform.

Local Install (stdio)

For offline development:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "you-com": {
      "source": "custom",
      "command": {
        "path": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "@youdotcom-oss/mcp"],
        "env": {
          "YDC_API_KEY": "<YDC_API_KEY>"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Zed gotcha: for stdio servers, command is an object with path, args, and env fields—not a string. This is different from Claude Desktop’s format.

Omit YDC_API_KEY for free-tier behavior.

Quick Demo

Search for the latest Zed editor release notes and tell me what's new.
Research which Rust-based code editors support MCP in 2026, with citations.

Troubleshooting

Confirm the key is context_servers and you didn’t add a "type" field. Zed’s schema is stricter than most clients.

For local installs, Zed’s command is an object with path, args, and env, not a string. This is a common copy-paste mistake from other clients’ configs.

Zed’s AI assistant requires you to enable tools explicitly in the panel UI. Click the tools dropdown and tick You.com’s tools.

Verify Authorization header is exactly Bearer YDC-... with one space.

Resources

MCP Server Reference

Endpoint, authentication, and full tool reference.

SDKs & Tools Overview

Browse every You.com SDK, agent tool, and integration.