GitStorm

The JetBrains Git tool window, in Visual Studio Code.
A real commit graph, branch and stash management, and blame annotations — in the bottom panel, where your editor stays visible above it.

Why GitStorm

If you came to VS Code from PhpStorm, IntelliJ, or WebStorm, the Git window is the thing you miss. VS Code's built-in Git is a staging list — it has no graph, no branch tree, no way to squash or reword from the history.

GitStorm puts that window back:

• It lives in the bottom panel, next to Terminal, not in a cramped sidebar and not covering your code.
• It rewrites history from the graph — reword, squash, drop, cherry-pick, revert — with a confirmation that says exactly what will change.
• It is free, MIT, and complete. No paid tier gating the graph, no account, no telemetry, and no runtime dependencies — it shells out to the git you already have.

Install

Get GitStorm on the Visual Studio Marketplace →

From inside VS Code: open Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X), search GitStorm, click Install.

From the command line:

code --install-extension Panterosa.git-storm

Open it

Three ways, whichever is closest to hand:

1. Click the GitStorm icon in the status bar (bottom left) — it toggles the panel.
2. Click the GitStorm tab in the bottom panel, beside Terminal and Problems.
3. Ctrl+Shift+P → Git Storm: Show Commit Graph.

The panel holds three views side by side: Repository (branches, remotes, tags, stashes), Log (the graph), and File History.

What you get

Commit graph

A coloured lane graph across every branch, tag and remote.

• Loads instantly on big repositories. Commits arrive a page at a time and the next page loads as you scroll, so a 50 000-commit repo opens in milliseconds rather than freezing for seconds.
• Filter by message, author or hash as you type; scope the graph to one ref with the dropdown.
• Commit details beside the graph — full message, author, committer, clickable parents, and the changed files. Two splitters let you size the log, the message and the file list independently.
• Right-click a commit: show changes, compare with the working tree, checkout, branch or tag from here, edit the commit message, cherry-pick, revert, drop, reset (soft / mixed / hard), copy hash or message.
• Right-click a changed file: open the diff, open the file in the editor, open the revision, show its history, copy its path.
• Select several commits — Ctrl/Cmd+click to add, Shift+click for a range — then squash or drop them together.
• Double-click a commit to open everything it changed in one multi-file diff.
• Prefer a full tab? Git Storm: Open Commit Graph in an Editor Tab.

Branches, remotes, tags, stashes

Branches show their upstream and live ↑1 ↓2 ahead/behind counts. Clicking a ref scopes the graph to it.

Blame

• Annotate — right-click the gutter, or the commit icon in the editor title bar, for a fixed-width author · date · commit column in front of every line, the way PhpStorm's Annotate works. Hover a line and click its hash to jump straight to that commit in the graph. That is the whole point: trace a line back to the change that caused it.
• Inline blame — author, relative time and subject at the end of the line your cursor is on, including on unsaved edits.

File history

Every commit that touched the active file, following renames. Click a revision to diff it against your working copy.

Rewriting history, safely

Reword, squash and drop all rewrite commits, so GitStorm refuses to start unless a branch is checked out, the commits are on it, and the working tree is clean — nothing uncommitted is ever swept into a rebase.

• Edit commit message amends the tip in place. On an older commit it replays everything after it. You write the message first and confirm after.
• Squash combines consecutive commits. The result uses exactly the message you type.
• Drop removes commits completely — the selection does not have to be consecutive. This is the one rewrite that can genuinely conflict; if it does, the rebase is aborted, your branch is checked out again, and the message says how far it got. You are never left detached or mid-rebase.

Nothing is ever pushed for you. A rewritten branch that was already pushed still needs a force-push you make yourself.

Settings

FAQ

Do I need to uninstall GitLens? No. They coexist. GitStorm's graph, panel and annotations are separate from GitLens', though you may want to turn one extension's inline blame off so you do not get two.

Does it send anything anywhere? No. There is no telemetry, no account, and no network access of its own. Fetch, pull and push are handed to VS Code's built-in Git extension so your existing credentials are reused.

Does it work with my remote / SSH / monorepo? It runs the git binary already on your PATH, so anything your git can do, it can do.

Is any feature paid? No. Everything above is in the MIT-licensed build.

Does it support submodules / worktrees / partial clones? They are not specifically handled yet. The graph reads the repository containing the active file, so a worktree or submodule opened as its own folder works; nested views of both are not built.

Contributing

npm install
npm test     # compiles, then runs the self-check against throwaway repos
npm run bench   # measures graph load time against generated 1k–50k commit repos

Press F5 for an Extension Development Host. npm run package builds the .vsix.

git is invoked directly through child_process; historical file contents reach VS Code's own diff editor through a gitstorm: read-only content provider, so diffs, highlighting and folding are the editor's.

Issues and pull requests: github.com/Aihgn/GitStorm

License

MIT. Free for personal and commercial use.