Helix Mode

Work in progress. Not all Helix keybindings are implemented yet.

Zed’s Helix mode is an emulation layer that brings Helix-style keybindings and modal editing to Zed. It builds upon Zed’s Vim mode, so much of the core functionality is shared. Enabling helix_mode will also enable vim_mode.

For a guide on Vim-related features that are also available in Helix mode, please refer to our Vim mode documentation.

To check the current status of Helix mode, or to request a missing Helix feature, see the “Are we Helix yet?” discussion.

For a detailed list of Helix’s default keybindings, please visit the official Helix documentation.

Core differences

Any text object that works with m i or m a also works with ] and [, so for example ] ( selects the next pair of parentheses after the cursor.

In Helix mode, some text object keys follow Helix’s meanings instead of Vim’s: m i m and m a m select the closest surrounding pair of any kind (brackets, quotes, backticks, or vertical bars), t is the type/class text object, c is the comment text object, and x is the (X)HTML element text object.

Like Helix, the closest surrounding pair (m i m, m a m, m d m, m r m) is matched using the language’s syntax tree, so delimiters inside string literals or comments don’t count as pairs. In buffers without a language, no pair is matched.