Chronos History

Comprehensive history management for VS Code.

Chronos History provides a robust safety net by automatically tracking local snapshots of your work, independent of Git. Effortlessly restore previous versions or use specialized Git views to trace history for specific code selections.

📖 Features & Usage

Access all features via the context menu (right-click) in your editor or explorer:

Chronos History
 ├─ Show History              (File-specific timeline)
 ├─ Show History for Selection (History for selected lines)
 ├───────────────────────────
 ├─ Git History for Selection  (Git commits for selected lines)
 ├───────────────────────────
 ├─ Show Project History      (Global timeline of all changes)
 ├─ Show Recent Changes       (Quick view of latest modifications)
 ├─ Put Label                 (Create a named checkpoint)

🛠 Detailed Menu Reference

1. Show History

The File-specific "Time Machine". This opens a timeline of every automatic snapshot taken for the currently active file. Use this when you want to see how a specific file has evolved over the last few hours or days, compare versions side-by-side, or restore the file to a previous state.

2. Show History for Selection

Granular "Time Machine" for specific code. When you highlight a block of code (like a specific function or class), this filtered view shows only the snapshots where those specific lines were modified. It helps you ignore changes to the rest of the file and focus on the evolution of a single logic block.

3. Git History for Selection

Deep Git integration for specific lines. Unlike the Chronos snapshots (which are local and automatic), this tool queries your Git repository. It performs a git log -L to find every commit in your repository's history that ever touched the lines you have selected. It's the best way to see who changed a specific line and why (via commit messages).

4. Show Project History

The Global Activity Feed. This provides a bird's-eye view of changes across your entire workspace. It lists snapshots from all files, sorted chronologically. This is useful for answering the question: "What was I working on yesterday across the whole project?"

5. Show Recent Changes

The "What just happened?" view. A streamlined, high-priority view of the most recent modifications. While Project History shows a long timeline, Recent Changes is optimized for quick context switching—helping you remember the last few files you touched before a break or a meeting.

6. Put Label

Manual Checkpoints. Chronos takes snapshots automatically, but sometimes you want to mark a specific moment (e.g., "Right before the big API refactor" or "Stable build before test"). Putting a label creates a named bookmark in your timeline, making it easy to find and revert to that specific version later.

🚀 Installation

1. Open VS Code.
2. Go to the Extensions view (Cmd+Shift+X).
3. Search for Chronos History.
4. Click Install.

⚙️ Configuration

Tune the extension in Settings (Cmd+, -> search chronos):

🛡️ Data & Privacy

Your code stays yours. All history is stored locally on your machine (in VS Code's global storage or your project folder). No data is ever sent to any server.

Contributing / Developer Guide