GitLore

The story behind every line.

Free, local-first git insight inside VS Code — blame, history, an interactive commit graph, and branch comparison. No account, no paywall, no telemetry, no backend.

What is this?

Open any file in any git repo and GitLore answers the question you actually have: who wrote this line, when, why, and what else changed with it.

It does that without leaving your editor, without signing in, and without sending your code anywhere. Everything runs against the git binary already on your machine.

If you've used GitLens, GitLore covers the same core ground — inline blame, a commit graph, commit details, branch comparison — with every feature free and a deliberately smaller surface area. See How it compares.

Status: early but stable-channel. Everything below works and is covered by tests — 207 unit tests and 32 integration tests against a real VS Code instance. It is still 0.x, so expect breaking changes before 1.0. Bug reports are very welcome.

Install

From the Marketplace — search GitLore in the Extensions view (⇧⌘X / Ctrl+Shift+X) and click Install. Or from the command line:

code --install-extension RajpratapsinghJadon.gitlore

From a .vsix — grab one from Releases, then:

code --install-extension gitlore-0.2.0.vsix

Requires VS Code 1.85+ and git on your PATH. Works in Cursor and other VS Code-based editors.

Getting started in 60 seconds

1. Open a file in a git repo. The current line's author and age appear at the end of the line, and in the status bar.
2. Hover that line for the full commit message, dates, and the diff stat.
3. Open the panel — ⌘J / Ctrl+J, then pick the GitLore tab (next to Terminal and Output). The commit graph loads itself.
4. Click any commit row. Its details load in the pane beside the graph — every changed file, collapsible, with a real diff gutter.
5. Everything else is a button in each view's title bar. You never need the command palette.

Features

Inline blame, where you're already looking

The current line's author and age, as a muted end-of-line decoration. It updates when you change lines — not on every cursor move — and the hover card adds the full message, relative and absolute dates, that commit's diff stat for this file, and the short SHA. Customise the text with gitLore.blame.format, or turn it off entirely.

An interactive commit graph, in the panel

A repo-wide, branch-and-merge-aware graph — not a flat log. Branch, tag and remote-tracking labels are each styled distinctly, uncommitted work is pinned at the top as a Working Changes row, and the toolbar lets you scope to one branch, filter by message/author/SHA as you type, and refresh. Arrow keys move the selection; Enter opens the commit.

Commit details you can act on

Each changed file is its own collapsible section holding only that file's hunks, with a filter box for large commits. Diffs show old and new line numbers in a gutter and tint changed lines, so you can see which line moved — and line numbers stay out of your text selection, so copying a diff gives you just the code.

Copy SHA, Copy message, and Open on GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket sit in the action bar. Open changes on any file row hands off to a real diff editor when you want syntax highlighting and folding.

Branch comparison without modal prompts

Two ref pickers with a swap button, and Ahead / Behind / All Files tabs with counts. It opens on your current branch versus its upstream, so it's useful immediately — retarget either side in place. Diffs are taken against the merge-base, matching what a GitHub or GitLab pull request shows you.

Also

• File history — every commit that touched the current file, following renames, in the Explorer.
• Issue and PR links — #123 in a commit message becomes a link, auto-detected from your remote or pointed at any tracker (Jira included) via a regex and URL template.

Commands

Every command is also a title-bar button in the GitLore panel.

Settings

Privacy

GitLore runs entirely locally. Your git data never leaves your machine.

The one network request it makes on its own: author avatars from gravatar.com, keyed by an MD5 hash of the commit email — that's Gravatar's own lookup spec, not a security-relevant use of the hash.

Two things open your browser, and only when you click them: Open on GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket, and issue links. Both URLs are built locally from your origin remote; GitLore doesn't contact the host to construct them.

No telemetry. No analytics. No account.

How it compares

GitLore is not trying to out-feature GitLens — it's trying to be the free, fast, small part you actually use every day. Honest accounting:

What GitLore does — inline blame and hover, status bar, file history, commit graph, commit details with per-file diffs, branch comparison, issue linking. All free, forever.

What it deliberately doesn't — staging, stashing or committing (that's VS Code's own Source Control view, and the graph links you there), and anything behind a sign-in.

What's missing for now — AI commit summaries and line explanations (planned, using your own model via VS Code's Language Model API, so no key goes to us), a file-tree view of changed files, and graph auto-refresh. See the changelog for the current list.

Contributing

npm install
npm run watch     # rebuild on change
npm run lint      # eslint + tsc --noEmit
npm run test      # unit + integration

Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host with GitLore loaded.

• npm run test:unit runs just the fast, VS Code-free tests over src/core and the renderers.
• npm run package builds a .vsix; npm run package:pre builds a pre-release one.
• npm run icon re-renders media/icon.png from media/icon.svg (needs rsvg-convert).

Architecture, conventions and the roadmap live in CLAUDE.md. The short version: src/core/ is pure logic with zero vscode imports and is unit-tested in isolation; everything VS Code-facing sits in providers/, views/ and commands/.

License

MIT — free, forever, no exceptions.