Rule Nesting, Extensibility, and Advanced Concepts: Rule Templates

Similar to adding rules to the default rules, you can nest rules within other rules with the `/prompt` command (only supported in Text Threads currently). You might want to nest rules to: - Create templates on the fly - Break collections like docs or references into smaller, mix-and-matchable parts - Create variants of a similar rule (e.g., `Async Rust - Tokio` vs. `Async Rust - Async-std`) ### Example: ```plaintext Title: Zed-Flavored Rust ## About Zed /prompt Zed: Zed (a rule about what Zed is) ## Rust - Zed Style /prompt Rust: Async - Async-std (zed doesn't use tokio) /prompt Rust: Zed-style Crates (we have some unique conventions) /prompt Rust - Workspace deps (bias towards reusing deps from the workspace) ``` _The text in parentheses above are comments and are not part of the rule._ > **Note:** While you technically _can_ nest a rule within itself, we wouldn't recommend it (in the strongest of terms.) Use at your own risk! By using nested rules, you can create modular and reusable rule components that can be combined in various ways to suit different scenarios. > **Note:** When using slash commands to bring in additional context, the injected content can be edited directly inline in the text thread—edits here will not propagate to the saved rules. ## Extensibility Additional slash commands can be provided by extensions. See [Extension: Slash Commands](../extensions/slash-commands.md) to learn how to create your own. ## Advanced Concepts ### Rule Templates {#rule-templates} Zed uses rule templates to power internal assistant features, like the terminal assistant, or the content rules used in the inline assistant. Zed has the following internal rule templates: - `content_prompt.hbs`: Used for generating content in the editor. - `terminal_assistant_prompt.hbs`: Used for the terminal assistant feature. At this point it is unknown if we will expand templates further to be user-creatable. ### Overriding Templates > **Note:** It is not recommended to override templates unless you know what you are doing. Editing templates will break your assistant if done incorrectly. Zed allows you to override the default rules used for various assistant features by placing custom Handlebars (.hbs) templates in your `~/.config/zed/prompt_overrides` directory. The following templates can be overridden: 1. [`content_prompt.hbs`](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/tree/main/assets/prompts/content_prompt.hbs): Used for generating content in the editor. 2. [`terminal_assistant_prompt.hbs`](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/tree/main/assets/prompts/terminal_assistant_prompt.hbs): Used for the terminal assistant feature. > **Note:** Be sure you want to override these, as you'll miss out on iteration on our built-in features. This should be primarily used when developing Zed.

This section details how to nest rules using the `/prompt` command, promoting modularity and reusability. It also touches on the extensibility of the system via slash commands provided by extensions. Advanced concepts, including internal rule templates used by Zed and the ability to override these templates (with a strong warning against doing so without proper understanding), are discussed.