zed-dbt-pane

A tool to run dbt models from Zed and display the output in a side pane.

A 6-minute demo & how-to-install guide is available on YouTube.

Works with any dbt-supported warehouse — Postgres, Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery, DuckDB, Databricks, etc. Everything goes through dbt show, so your profiles.yml and dbt adapter handle auth and SQL dialect.

Install

git clone https://github.com/WhimsicalCode/zed-dbt-pane ~/zed-dbt-pane
bash ~/zed-dbt-pane/install.sh /path/to/your/zed/workspace

Pass your Zed workspace root (the directory you open in Zed), not the dbt project root. The installer finds the dbt project for you, even if it's nested inside a monorepo.

Then add ⌘+enter as a shortcut. Hit ⌘⇧P → zed: open keymap file, and paste:

  {
    "context": "Editor && extension == sql",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-enter": ["task::Spawn", { "task_name": "dbt: run selection" }],
    },
  },

Re-running install.sh is a silent no-op if everything's already in place — it never overwrites your files.

How it works

cmd-enter runs your selection through dbt show and writes the result to a JSON file. A long-running Streamlit app polls that file and renders it as a table. You keep the Streamlit page open in your browser as a results pane next to Zed.

Update

cd ~/zed-dbt-pane && git pull
bash ~/zed-dbt-pane/install.sh --update /path/to/your/zed/workspace

Uninstall

bash ~/zed-dbt-pane/clean.sh /path/to/your/zed/workspace

Removes everything install.sh added. The cmd-enter keybinding in ~/.config/zed/keymap.json and the kylejbrk/zed-dbt LSP extension live outside the workspace — remove those by hand.

Requirements

• dbt 1.5+ (for dbt show --inline --output json).
• A working profiles.yml — if dbt build runs, you're good.
• uv on $PATH.
• Zed 0.150+.
• macOS (Linux works too if you swap open for xdg-open in dbt_pane.sh).

Companion: hover and cmd-click on {{ ref(...) }}

This package handles run-and-display. For LSP-based navigation (hover, cmd-click on refs), install kylejbrk/zed-dbt separately. The two are independent.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.