zed/crates/eval_cli

eval-cli

Headless Rust binary for running Zed's agent in evaluation and benchmark environments. It is designed for containerized harnesses such as Harbor and Pier, where the repository is already checked out and model API keys are provided via environment variables.

eval-cli uses the same NativeAgent + AcpThread pipeline as the production Zed editor: a full agentic loop with tool calls, subagents, and retries, without a GUI.

This directory also contains zed_eval/, the Python zed-eval package used to build this binary, launch remote benchmark runs on Modal/Harbor/Pier, and fetch results. For normal benchmark orchestration, start with zed_eval/README.md.

Building

Native, for local testing on the same OS

cargo build --release -p eval_cli

Linux x86_64, for Harbor/Pier sandboxes

Harbor and Pier containers run Linux x86_64. From the repository root, use the Docker-based build script:

crates/eval_cli/script/build-linux

This produces target/eval-cli, an x86_64 Linux ELF binary. You can also specify a custom output path:

crates/eval_cli/script/build-linux --output ~/bin/eval-cli-linux

Standalone usage

eval-cli \
  --workdir /testbed \
  --model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 \
  --instruction "Fix the bug described in..." \
  --timeout 600 \
  --output-dir /logs/agent

eval-cli reads provider API keys from environment variables such as ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and OPENAI_API_KEY. It writes result.json, thread.md, and thread.json to the output directory.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Agent finished
1	Error, such as model/auth/runtime failure
2	Timeout
3	Interrupted by SIGTERM or SIGINT

Running benchmarks

Most benchmark runs should use the Python zed-eval CLI instead of invoking eval-cli directly. From the repository root:

crates/eval_cli/script/install-zed-eval
zed-eval doctor --create-volume
zed-eval run rf --from local --n-tasks 2

For one-off source runs without installing the tool globally, use crates/eval_cli/script/zed-eval <args>.

See zed_eval/README.md for supported benchmarks, remote builds, Modal setup, reporting, rejudging, baselines, and Harbor/Pier installed agent usage.