Use ScaledThought with Zed

Zed names the key variable after the provider id (scaledthought → SCALEDTHOUGHT_API_KEY), so it doesn't read ST_API_KEY by itself. Don't put the key in settings.json.

Paste the prompt above into your coding agent, or run the command yourself in your project's directory. It creates the account, writes ST_API_KEY and ST_BASE_URL to ./.env (mode 0600) and adds .env to .gitignore. Only the US region is open; Canada is coming soon.

npx -y scaledthought@0.3 init --region us --source org-zed

Usage is prepaid, so a new account answers 402 insufficient_credits until its first top-up. This prints a payment link and opens it in your browser; nothing is charged until you pay on it. How prepaid credits work

npx -y scaledthought@0.3 billing topup --amount-usd 20
npx -y scaledthought@0.3 billing wait

In Zed's settings.json. max_tokens is the model's context window, from the catalog (npx -y scaledthought@0.3 models deepseek-v4-1-flash shows it).

{
  "language_models": {
    "openai_compatible": {
      "scaledthought": {
        "api_url": "https://api.us.scaledthought.com/v1",
        "available_models": [
          {
            "name": "deepseek-v4-1-flash",
            "display_name": "deepseek-v4-1-flash (ScaledThought)",
            "max_tokens": 1000000,
            "max_output_tokens": 32768,
            "capabilities": {
              "tools": false,
              "images": false,
              "parallel_tool_calls": false,
              "chat_completions": true
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Either enter the key in Settings → AI → LLM Providers (Zed keeps it in the system keychain), or start Zed with it in the environment.

set -a; . ./.env; set +a
SCALEDTHOUGHT_API_KEY="$ST_API_KEY" zed .

• tools is false in this example. Zed's agent needs tool calls: send one test request with tools to the model first (see Tool calling), then set it to true.

• Zed: OpenAI API compatible, read 2026-10-10.
• ScaledThought: /llms.txt (the setup protocol) and the docs.