Edit the zsh buffer with your $EDITOR of choice

If you spend a lot of time in the shell you also probably edit a lot of commands, which at times can be tedious when they’re getting a bit to long and complex. Being able to easily fire up your $EDITOR of choice when needed can therefore be a real blessing.

To make it work you need to add these lines to your configuration file ~/.zshrc:

autoload -U edit-command-line
zle -N edit-command-line
bindkey '^I' edit-command-line

And don’t forget to set the $EDITOR variable as well:

export EDITOR="vim"

I have it bound to Ctrl+I to be consistent with how I open the $EDITOR in qutebrowser, but you’re free to bind it to what makes sense for you. And if you use the Vi-mode in zsh like me it’s probably a good idea to bind a key for it in the normal mode as well:

bindkey -M vicmd '^I' edit-command-line

Save your changes and source your configuration with the command source ~/.zshrc or just restart the shell for it to take effect.