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Universal Ctags LSP support

v0.0.2 · by Mateusz Mazur · added 3 November 2026

Add Universal Ctags support to the Zed editor

Language servers
Install in Forge SuperView the source

How to install

With Forge Super installed, the button above opens the app on this extension, where you press Install. Nothing is installed until you do.

You can also open the Extensions panel in the app and search for Universal Ctags LSP support. The extension's id is ctags.

Don't have Forge Super yet? Download it here.

README

From the extension's repository, written by its authors and not by Mentenaz. See the source.

Ctags LSP extension for Zed

Add ctags LSP server to your Zed editor for enhanced code navigation and symbol lookup. Ctags generates an index of source code symbols (functions, classes, variables) to enable "go to definition" and symbol search features. You can enable this server by referring to it as ctags-lsp in your Zed configuration.

Features

  • Go to definition: Jump directly to symbol definitions
  • Symbol search: Find functions, classes, and variables across your workspace
  • Code navigation: Navigate through your codebase efficiently
  • Workspace symbol lookup: Search for symbols across all files in your project
  • Multi-language support: Works with any language supported by ctags

Installation

1. Install the Extension

Install this extension from the Zed extensions marketplace by searching for "ctags-lsp".

Installing locally (for dev needs)

To install this extension locally, you can first clone this repository, and then load it using zed: install dev extension action:

git clone https://github.com/mazurel/zed-ctags.git

TIP: You can see installation status by running zed: open log.

NOTE: You WILL need rustc compiler !

2. Install Ctags

This extension requires ctags to be installed on your system.

To install ctags, please refer to the official documentation: https://github.com/universal-ctags/ctags

Zed Configuration

To enable ctags-lsp LSP for C language by default, add the following to your settings.json:

{
  "languages": {
    "C": {
      "language_servers": ["ctags-lsp"]
    }
  }
}

You can also enable ctags-lsp for any other ctags-supported language by adding it to the languages configuration in your settings.json:

  "languages": {
    "C": {
      "language_servers": ["ctags-lsp"]
    },
    "C++": {
      "language_servers": ["ctags-lsp"]
    },
    "Java": {
      "language_servers": ["ctags-lsp"]
    },
    "Python": {
      "language_servers": ["ctags-lsp"]
    }
  },

Supported Languages

Ctags supports many programming languages including but not limited to:

  • C/C++
  • Java
  • Python
  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • Go
  • Rust
  • PHP
  • Ruby
  • And many more...

Project-specific Configuration

If you want to change these settings only for the current project, you can modify the languages configuration in your project's .zed/settings.json file.

For further reference, please see: https://zed.dev/docs/configuring-languages#choosing-language-servers

Special thanks to