+edit-config fails when $VISUAL contains arguments

[xpe]

Issue Description

I expect that setting export VISUAL="zed --new" would work just fine with ghostty +edit-config but it does not.

(I might be wrong, but I feel like this was recently working in a previous version of Ghostty (tip).)

Expected Behavior

# .zshenv
export VISUAL="zed --new"

Note to the above: IIRC, I think the long version of the flag was recently renamed from --new-window to --new. I checked with both --new and -n and the Ghostty error is the same (shown below).

% ghostty +edit-config

I would expect the above to start the Zed editor in a fresh workspace.

% zed --version
Zed 0.229.0 – /Applications/Zed.app
% which zed
/usr/local/bin/zed

Notes

1. I have confirmed this issue does not occur with export VISUAL="zed"

2. I have not yet tried to generalize this issue; e.g. to see if this is specific to Zed. I doubt it is Zed-specific. It is more likely related to how $VISUAL is handled by .

3. IIRC, I've used this style of $VISUAL environment variable before (with an argument) with other programs that invoke $VISUAL, and it tends to work. That said, I'm not sure what is considered "standard". After asking and discussing with Claude Sonnet 4.6, it said "Whether [adding a CLI argument to the env variable] works depends entirely on how the calling program invokes $VISUAL, not on the export itself."

Actual Behavior

% ghostty +edit-config
Failed to execute the editor. Error code=error.FileNotFound.

This is usually due to the executable path not existing, invalid
permissions, or the shell environment not being set up
correctly.

Editor: zed --new
Path: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config

Reproduction Steps

1. export VISUAL="zed --new"
2. ghostty +edit-config

Ghostty Logs

% sudo log stream --level debug --predicate 'subsystem=="com.mitchellh.ghostty"'
Password:
Filtering the log data using "subsystem == "com.mitchellh.ghostty""
Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL
2026-03-27 09:49:29.465952-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty version=1.3.2-main+efc0e4118
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466390-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty build optimize=ReleaseFast
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466407-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] runtime=.none
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466413-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] font_backend=.coretext
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466418-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] renderer=renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466424-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] libxev default backend=kqueue
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466581-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] os_locale: setlocale from env result=en_US.UTF-8
2026-03-27 09:49:29.466689-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] executing CLI action=.edit-config
2026-03-27 09:49:29.468043-0400 0x2ff906   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:sentry] sentry: sentry envelope does not contain crash, discarding
2026-03-27 09:49:29.469751-0400 0x2ff903   Error       0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] error reading optional config file, not loading err=error.FileIsEmpty path=/Users/username/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config
2026-03-27 09:49:29.469821-0400 0x2ff903   Info        0x0                  61503  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] config: default shell source=env value=/bin/zsh

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.3.2-main+efc0e4118

Version
  - version: 1.3.2-main+efc0e4118
  - channel: tip
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.15.2
  - build mode    : .ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : .none
  - font engine   : .coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

OS Version Information

macOS Tahoe 26.3.1 (a)

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

<<default / empty>>

Additional Relevant Configuration

% zed --version
Zed 0.229.0 – /Applications/Zed.app

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[xpe]

I wrote up the above by hand. Now I'm asking Claude for its take.

[xpe]

I discussed with Claude:

• providing it with code snippets as of b8b0896
• pointed it to this GitHub issue, and
• asked it to iterate several times.

Here is its output...

---

Analysis from Claude Opus 4.6 (Extended Thinking)

The root cause is in src/cli/edit_config.zig, in runInner. The $VISUAL string is passed directly to execvpeZ as the executable path. When VISUAL="zed --new", the kernel receives "zed --new" as a literal binary name — space included — and returns ENOENT, which surfaces as error.FileNotFound.

This is not a shell. execvpeZ delegates to execve(2), which does no word-splitting. Programs that invoke $VISUAL via exec rather than via a shell must tokenize the string themselves.

The fix is to split the editor string on whitespace before constructing argv. The first token becomes the executable for PATH resolution and argv[0]; remaining tokens are inserted before the config file path. This requires replacing the current comptime-known fixed-size argv slice with a runtime-allocated one.

This is the same approach used by git, sudoedit, and similar tools. The standard limitation applies: shell-style quoting within $VISUAL (e.g., paths with spaces) would not be supported, but that's consistent with existing convention.

Note: $EDITOR likely has the same code path and the same bug.

Workaround: Use a wrapper script that calls exec zed --new "$@" and point $VISUAL at that.

[xpe]

Based on the above, I renamed this issue to: "+edit-config fails when $VISUAL contains arguments" since this captures the underlying issue better.

[jcollie]

This is a duplicate of several other reports, but this has a good title/discussion so I'm using this to create the issue.

#11897

[xpe]

Thanks for the quick fix. Sorry about the duplicate. I see discussion #8896 and its corresponding issue #8898 now.

[kymikoloco]

I think it was a duplicate due to a regression from what I believe was a just a simple git merge conflict introduced in the update to Zig 0.15.0