Gitnotate — Sub-line commenting for GitHub PR reviews

GitHub PR reviews only support line-level comments. When reviewing Markdown documents — specs, proposals, design docs — you often want to comment on a specific phrase like "revenue growth exceeded expectations", not the entire line.

Gitnotate lets you comment on exact words and phrases within a line, directly in your VS Code editor.

Features

📝 Sub-line Comment Threads

Comment threads anchored to exact character ranges in PR diffs — not just whole lines. Comments show as wavy underline highlights in the editor.

📂 Comments Sidebar

All PR comments grouped by file in a dedicated sidebar panel. Click any comment to jump directly to the file and line.

💬 Reply & Resolve

Full threading support — reply to comments and resolve/unresolve threads, all round-tripped to GitHub's review API.

🔄 Live Polling

Comments auto-refresh every 30 seconds (configurable). Uses ETag-based conditional requests to minimize API usage. Pauses on window blur, resumes on focus.

↔️ Side-aware Diffs

Comments are placed on the correct side in diff views — old file (LEFT) vs new file (RIGHT). Side indicators ([Old]/[New]) shown in the sidebar.

📌 Diff-aware Anchoring

Comment threads follow text through local edits. If you edit lines above a comment, the thread moves with the text.

Getting Started

Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace
Open a repository with an active GitHub Pull Request
Sign in to GitHub when prompted (uses VS Code's built-in GitHub auth)
Open a Markdown file from the PR — comment threads appear automatically
Select text and right-click → "Gitnotate: Add Comment" to post a sub-line comment

How It Works

Gitnotate embeds lightweight ^gn metadata in standard GitHub PR comments. This means:

Works without the extension — comments include a quoted text fallback, fully readable by anyone
Zero extra files — no sidecar files or infrastructure needed
All GitHub features — threading, resolve, @mentions, reactions, and notifications work out of the box

Commands

Command	Description
`Gitnotate: Add Comment`	Add a sub-line comment on selected text
`Gitnotate: Enable for Workspace`	Enable Gitnotate for the current workspace
`Gitnotate: Disable for Workspace`	Disable Gitnotate for the current workspace

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`gitnotate.pollInterval`	`30`	Polling interval in seconds for live comment updates
`gitnotate.enabledRepos`	`[]`	List of repository paths where Gitnotate is enabled

Requirements

VS Code 1.85 or later
A GitHub repository with an open Pull Request
GitHub authentication (VS Code's built-in GitHub auth provider)

License

MIT

Gitnotate

Pedro Fuentes