AICHE +

Z

Zed Integration

The short answer: open Zed, position your cursor in a comment, README, or commit message field, press ⌃+⌥+R (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+R (Windows/Linux), speak for 30-60 seconds, and AICHE inserts polished text at speaking speed.

Zed's collaborative editing shines during pair programming, but typing documentation distracts from verbal communication flow. You're explaining code to your pair, but the keyboard interrupts the conversation.

1. Open Zed editor with your project loaded.
2. Position your cursor where you need text (comment, README, or documentation file).
3. Press your AICHE hotkey to start recording.
4. Speak your content naturally.
5. Press the hotkey again-AICHE transcribes and inserts formatted text.

Documentation Workflow

Inline Comments

Writing clear comments while coding breaks flow. Position your cursor above a complex function, press your hotkey, and explain the logic out loud (example: "This function handles retry logic for failed API requests. It implements exponential backoff starting at one second and doubling with each attempt up to a maximum of 30 seconds. After five failures, it logs the error to Sentry and returns null so the calling code can handle the failure gracefully").

AICHE captures your explanation. Edit for brevity if needed, but the complete reasoning is documented in seconds instead of minutes of typing.

README Files

Documentation files demand detail typing can't keep up with. Open your README.md, press your hotkey at each section, and dictate:

• Installation instructions with all prerequisite steps
• Configuration examples explaining each option
• API documentation with parameter descriptions
• Troubleshooting guides with specific error scenarios

Speaking captures nuance that typing abbreviates away. Your documentation becomes actually helpful because you explained properly instead of taking shortcuts.

Architecture Decisions

Create a docs/architecture.md file. For each major technical decision, dictate the context, alternatives considered, chosen approach, and trade-offs (example: "Chose PostgreSQL over MongoDB for the user data layer. Considered MongoDB initially for schema flexibility, but user data requires strict consistency and complex relational queries. PostgreSQL provides ACID guarantees, mature full-text search, and better tooling for analytics. Trade-off: schema migrations require more ceremony, but the consistency guarantees outweigh this cost for our use case").

These architectural notes take 90 seconds to speak but 12 minutes to type. Voice makes documenting decisions feasible instead of aspirational.

Collaborative Editing With Voice

Zed's real-time collaboration is built for pair programming. One person codes, another reviews. Voice input complements this workflow.

The reviewer can dictate feedback directly into comments without interrupting the flow. The coder can speak documentation while the reviewer reads, parallelizing work that normally happens serially.

Example session: you're implementing authentication. Your pair asks about session expiry. Without stopping to type, you press your hotkey and dictate the comment explaining the 30-day sliding window. The conversation continues; the documentation appears.

Commit Message Dictation

Clear commit messages matter for team understanding, but typing them at the end of a coding session is exhausting. Zed's Git integration shows the commit message editor.

Press your hotkey and speak the complete message (example: "Implements authentication middleware with JWT validation. Adds refresh token rotation logic with secure httpOnly cookies and automatic cleanup of expired tokens. Includes comprehensive error handling for malformed tokens, expired signatures, and revoked sessions. Updates API documentation with authentication flow diagrams and example requests").

Your commit messages become meaningful because speaking captures the full context you remember right now, before you forget details.

Result: code documentation that took 15 minutes to type across multiple files now takes 4 minutes to dictate, and commit messages include actual detail instead of vague "fix auth" summaries.

Do this now: open Zed with a project, find a complex function without comments, press your hotkey, and explain what it does out loud like you're teaching someone. Read the result.