NocturneForge

NocturneForge is an independent, AI-native code editor built on the open-source Zed foundation. It is developed by justonemorenight and is not an official product of Zed Industries.

NocturneForge keeps Zed's full Git ancestry and tracks the upstream repository so that fixes and improvements can be reviewed, fetched, and cherry-picked without losing provenance.

Why NocturneForge

NocturneForge focuses on making agent work observable, controllable, and recoverable while preserving Zed's fast native editor, LSP, DAP, terminal, sandbox, and diff-review workflows.

• Native orchestration runtime for task planning, scheduling, verification, retry, cancellation, and artifact tracking.
• Direct, Plan, Orchestrate, and Auto execution strategies with Manual, Supervised, and Autonomous policies.
• Agent Activity Center for native agents and ACP sessions.
• ACP interoperability with OMP (Oh My Pi), OpenCode, and other ACP clients.
• Structured plans, execution checklists, context visibility, and reviewable changes instead of opaque prompt-only orchestration.
• The editor remains native Zed: GPU rendering, LSP/DAP, terminal, sandbox, collaboration, and project context are retained.

Project status

Note: NocturneForge is actively evolving. Status reflects current preview builds.

Area	Status
Native agent strategy selector	Implemented
Native and ACP activity surfaces	Implemented / iterating
Structured plans and execution policies	Implemented / iterating
Orchestration runtime and verification loop	In progress
OMP/OpenCode interoperability	In progress
Cross-platform branded releases	Planned

Architecture

Native Thread / ACP Session
            │
            ▼
   Orchestration Runtime
     ├─ Plan Graph
     ├─ Scheduler + Task Registry
     ├─ Verification / Retry Loop
     ├─ Cancellation Tree
     └─ Context + Artifact Store
            │
            ▼
     Activity Center / Review UI

The runtime is deliberately separate from the conversation view. A thread can run directly, present a plan for approval, or coordinate independent tasks in waves. Each task exposes lifecycle, model/effort, context, outputs, and cancellation state to the UI.

Build on macOS

The supported local release target is Apple Silicon:

TERM=xterm-256color \
ZED_BUNDLE_CHANNEL=preview \
CARGO_BUNDLE_SKIP_BUILD=1 \
./script/bundle-mac aarch64-apple-darwin

The build script supports an external target symlink, which is useful when the local disk is small. Verify the mounted volume before building and never run two bundle jobs concurrently. The signed app and DMG are written below target/aarch64-apple-darwin/release/.

The executable and CLI intentionally remain named zed for compatibility with existing settings, extensions, scripts, and shell aliases. The packaged app is branded NocturneForge with its own bundle identifier.

Agent configuration

Native Agent strategies are selected in the conversation header. ACP servers can be configured with their normal command, for example:

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "Oh My Pi": { "command": "omp", "args": ["acp"] },
    "OpenCode": { "command": "opencode", "args": ["acp"] }
  }
}

Use Plan when you want to inspect and approve a checklist, Orchestrate for multi-task work with verification and retry, and Direct for a focused change. Auto chooses a strategy from task scope and policy; the user can override it.

Staying in sync with Zed

The repository remotes are intended to be:

origin   → https://github.com/justonemorenight/NocturneForge.git
upstream → https://github.com/zed-industries/zed.git
backup   → https://github.com/justonemorenight/zed.git

Fetch upstream, inspect the diff, and preserve provenance when porting a merged change:

git fetch upstream main
git log --oneline upstream/main..HEAD
git cherry-pick -x <upstream-commit>

NocturneForge keeps Zed's commit ancestry; upstream attribution is retained in history and release notes.

Development and testing

See the upstream development guides under docs/src/development for platform prerequisites. Run focused crate checks while iterating, then use ./script/clippy and the relevant test suites before publishing a release.

Changes that affect the agent runtime should include coverage for cancellation, retry, persistence, ACP compatibility, and native rendering. Release builds must pass bundle, code-signing, arm64, icon, and smoke-test verification.

Contributing and releases

Issues and pull requests should describe the user-facing behavior, affected agent/runtime surfaces, tests run, and any upstream PR or commit being ported. Release notes call out changes to Native Agent, ACP, orchestration, packaging, and compatibility independently. Follow the existing contribution and license requirements in this repository.

License and attribution

NocturneForge remains licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later where applicable, with Apache-2.0 components and third-party licenses preserved as marked. License metadata and attribution generated by cargo-about are part of the release process. NocturneForge is a downstream project and does not claim Zed Industries' trademarks, branding, or official support.