At its Build 2025 conference, Microsoft announced Edit, a new open-source command-line text editor, to be distributed in the future as part of Windows 11. Edit aims to provide a lightweight native, modern command-line editing experience similar to Nano and Vim.
Microsoft explained developing Edit because 64-bit Windows lacked a default command-line text editor, a gap since the 32-bit MS-DOS Edit. Microsoft opted for a modeless design to be more user-friendly than modal editors like Vim (see Stackoverflow’s Helping One Million Developers Exit Vim) and built its own tool after finding existing modeless options either unsuitable for bundling or lacking Windows support.
Microsoft positions Edit as a simple editor for simple needs. Features include mouse support, the ability to open multiple files and switch between them, find and replace capabilities (including regex), and word wrap. The user interface features a modern interface and input controls similar to Visual Studio Code. There is however no right-click menu in the app.
Written in Rust, the editor stands small, at less than 250KB in size.
Discussions among developers on platforms like Reddit and Hacker News show varied reactions. Many commenters debated the necessity of a new CLI editor on Windows, questioning its use case given existing options. Some feel it’s redundant for those already using WSL with Nano or Vim or other tools like Git Bash, while others see it as potentially useful for quick, basic edits in a native Windows context without needing third-party installs or WSL.
Edit’s main contributor chimed in with a detailed rationale behind the in-house development:
We decided against nano, kilo, micro, yori, and others for various reasons. What we wanted was a small binary so we can ship it with all variants of Windows without extra justifications for the added binary size. It also needed to have decent Unicode support. It should’ve also been one built around VT output as opposed to Console APIs to allow for seamless integration with SSH. Lastly, first-class support for Windows was obviously also quite important. I think out of the listed editors, micro was probably the one we wanted to use the most, but… it’s just too large.
Microsoft has released Edit’s source code under the MIT license. Edit is not currently available in the stable channel of Windows 11. However, users can download Microsoft Edit from the project’s GitHub page.