space f f shows FFF GUI but cannot open selected file — any requirements or troubleshooting?

[jellydn]

Issue

I have FFF GUI installed following the README. The space f f keybinding works in the sense that it opens the FFF GUI panel — I can search and navigate results — but selecting/opening a file from the list does nothing. The file is highlighted but pressing Enter or clicking does not open it in the editor.

Setup

• Zed version: latest stable
• FFF GUI extension: installed via Zed extensions

Keybinding config (workspace context)

{
  "context": "Workspace",
  "bindings": {
    "space f f": ["task::Spawn", { "task_name": "fff-gpui: Files" }],
    "space f g": ["task::Spawn", { "task_name": "fff-gpui: Grep" }]
  }
}

Questions

1. Is there a specific version of fff (the CLI tool) required? I see the README mentions th0jensen/fff — is that a dependency?
2. Any troubleshooting steps to debug why selecting a file isn't working?
3. Are there any log files or Zed console output I should check?
4. Does the extension rely on a particular Zed API that may have changed recently?

What I've tried

• Restarting Zed after installing the extension
• Double-checking the keybinding format
• The FFF GUI panel appears correctly, just the file-open action doesn't work

Happy to provide more details or test any suggestions!

[jellydn]

FYI, I have the same keybinding config in my Zed 101 Setup draft PR — reproducing the config exactly if that helps for reproduction context.

[th0jensen]

Hey man!

Two quick questions:

• Do you have env.EDITOR set to "zed" in the task config?
• Do you have the editor config in the .config/fff-gpui/fff-gpui.toml set to "path/to/zed"?

[jellydn]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Checked both:

1. env.EDITOR in task config ✅ — Yes, set to "zed":

"env": { "EDITOR": "zed" }

2. Editor config in ~/.config/fff-gpui/ — The file is named config.toml (not fff-gpui.toml), with editor = "/usr/local/bin/zed" which resolves correctly:

/usr/local/bin/zed -> /Applications/Zed Preview.app/Contents/MacOS/cli

Full config:

sync_zed_settings = true
base_dir = "~/src/tries"
editor = "/usr/local/bin/zed"
global_keybind = "hyper+f"
exclude_dirs = ["Library", "node_modules"]
window_width = 960.0
window_height = 520.0
picker_pane_width = 430.0

[font]
ui_family = ".SystemUIFont"
buffer_family = "Maple Mono NF"
ui_size = 16.0
buffer_size = 15.0

So both settings look correct, yet selecting a file in the panel still doesn't open it in Zed. Any other ideas?

[jellydn]

Hi @th0jensen Any thought 🤔 or how to debug/check the log? Thanks.

[th0jensen]

Hey again, sorry for not getting back to you any quicker.

I can't reproduce this myself so I will have to look at logs if you can share those.

If installed and launched via brew:
~/Library/Logs/fff-gpui/fff-gpui.log

Otherwise:
~/.local/state/fff-gpui/fff-gpui.log

[jellydn]

@th0jensen I found it's trying to open with nvim but

[
	{
		"label": "fff-gpui: Files",
		"command": "fff-gpui --open .",
		"env": { "EDITOR": "zed" },
		"use_new_terminal": false,
		"allow_concurrent_runs": false,
		"reveal": "never",
		"reveal_target": "dock",
		"hide": "always",
		"shell": "system",
		"show_summary": false,
		"show_command": false,
		"save": "none",
	},
	{
		"label": "fff-gpui: Grep",
		"command": "fff-gpui --open . --grep",
		"env": { "EDITOR": "zed" },
		"use_new_terminal": false,
		"allow_concurrent_runs": false,
		"reveal": "never",
		"reveal_target": "dock",
		"hide": "always",
		"shell": "system",
		"show_summary": false,
		"show_command": false,
		"save": "none",
	},
]

Here is the log:

2026-05-27T04:28:33.729968Z DEBUG       main ThreadId(01) fff_gpui::picker: applying search result epoch=6 results=175 total_files=261 total_matched=175
2026-05-27T04:28:33.730148Z  INFO       main ThreadId(01) fff_gpui::picker: search results applied epoch=6 view=Files query=rea visible_results=175 selected=0 scan_done=true
2026-05-27T04:28:33.802939Z  INFO       main ThreadId(01) fff_gpui::picker: starting search epoch=7 query=read view=Files grep_mode=PlainText
2026-05-27T04:28:33.803845Z  INFO blocking-2 ThreadId(38) fff_search::file_picker: Fuzzy search completed query=FFFQuery { raw_query: "read", constraints: [], fuzzy_query: Text("read"), location: None } completed_in=575.5µs total_matched=192 returned_count=192 pagination=PaginationArgs { offset: 0, limit: 200 }
2026-05-27T04:28:33.804194Z  INFO blocking-2 ThreadId(38) fff_gpui::picker: file search completed epoch=7 query=read query_mode="plain_fuzzy" constraints=0 parse_elapsed=583ns search_elapsed=934.083µs total_files=261 total_matched=192 visible_results=177
2026-05-27T04:28:33.808437Z DEBUG       main ThreadId(01) fff_gpui::picker: applying search result epoch=7 results=177 total_files=261 total_matched=177
2026-05-27T04:28:33.808603Z  INFO       main ThreadId(01) fff_gpui::picker: search results applied epoch=7 view=Files query=read visible_results=177 selected=0 scan_done=true
2026-05-27T04:28:34.309078Z  INFO       main ThreadId(01) open_in_editor{path=/Users/huynhdung/src/tries/2026-03-18-jellydn-blog/README.md goto=None}: fff_gpui::editor: opening file with editor editor="nvim"
2026-05-27T04:28:34.316915Z  INFO       main ThreadId(01) fff_gpui::picker: spawned editor pid=75295 path=/Users/huynhdung/src/tries/2026-03-18-jellydn-blog/README.md```

[jellydn]

Works with inline like this:

[
	{
		"label": "fff-gpui: Files",
		"command": "EDITOR=zed fff-gpui --open .",
		"use_new_terminal": false,
		"allow_concurrent_runs": false,
		"reveal": "never",
		"reveal_target": "dock",
		"hide": "always",
		"shell": "system",
		"show_summary": false,
		"show_command": false,
		"save": "none",
	},
	{
		"label": "fff-gpui: Grep",
		"command": "EDITOR=zed fff-gpui --open . --grep",
		"use_new_terminal": false,
		"allow_concurrent_runs": false,
		"reveal": "never",
		"reveal_target": "dock",
		"hide": "always",
		"shell": "system",
		"show_summary": false,
		"show_command": false,
		"save": "none",
	},
]

[th0jensen]

Oh yeah, wow that is really weird. The only thing I can come up with is that there might be a PATH mismatch on your system? Are you using different shells for login and Zed?

Either way, glad you got it to work! I'll create a fix hardening the way the editor is picked.

[jellydn]

I use fish shell and use https://github.com/jellydn/zed-codemux for tmux wrapper for the terminal.

[th0jensen]

I am thinking the issue could be upstream, but at the same time it doesn't seem like it. I use zsh as my login and nushell everywhere else, so I'll install fish and check to see.

It seems like Zed assumes that Fish's env var setting is POSIX compliant, but it actually isn't. I haven't really optimised fff-gpui for fish either yet.

I'll document your workaround, running the task with "shell": { "program": "/bin/zsh" } should work as well.