Diffchestrator — VS Code Extension

Built for Claude Code. Multi-repo Git orchestration designed as a companion to Claude Code — Anthropic's CLI for agentic coding. Stage, review, and commit across repos without leaving VS Code, then hand off to Claude for AI-powered commits, code reviews, and multi-repo workflows.

Why Diffchestrator?

Claude Code works best when you can see what it changed, across every repo it touched. Diffchestrator gives you that visibility: a sidebar tree of all your repos, real-time change tracking, one-click diffs, and direct terminal integration with claude. No context switching, no manual git status in twelve terminals.

Features

Claude Code Integration

• AI Commit — runs claude --permission-mode acceptEdits in the repo's terminal for real-time output (Ctrl+D, C)
• Open Claude Code — launches claude -c to continue the previous session, or claude --add-dir for multiple selected repos (Ctrl+D, L)
• Yolo — opens terminal and runs the yolo alias from claude-sandbox (Ctrl+D, Y)
• Ask Claude button per diff hunk in the multi-repo diff webview
• Per-repo terminal tracking — each repo tracks its own Claude, Yolo, and shell terminals independently. Switching repos auto-switches the terminal panel to the correct session.
• Terminal reuse — Ctrl+D, L and Ctrl+D, Y reuse existing sessions instead of spawning new ones

Active Repos & Workspace Switching

• Active Repos view — sidebar section showing recent repos (MRU, up to 10) with live terminal status indicators
• Persisted across reloads — active repos and selection survive VS Code restarts
• Cycle repos — Ctrl+D, Tab cycles through all recent repos (like Alt+Tab but for repos), switching the changed files view, terminal, and diff editor in one keystroke
• Close active repos — Ctrl+D, Q closes current, Ctrl+D, Shift+Q picks which to close, Ctrl+D, Shift+Tab closes all
• Terminal indicators — each repo shows which terminal types are running (Claude, Yolo, Shell)
• Auto-switch terminal — clicking a repo in Active Repos, Favorites, or Repositories auto-surfaces that repo's terminal (priority: Claude > Yolo > Shell)
• Terminal tab sync — clicking a terminal tab (Claude, Yolo, shell) auto-selects the repo in the sidebar, opens its changed files, and adds it to Active Repos if not already there
• Auto-add on terminal open — opening a terminal, Claude Code, or Yolo session for a repo automatically adds it to Active Repos
• Notifications — notifies when Claude commits or modifies files in any repo, with "Show Terminal" and "View Changes" action buttons (changes notification debounced 15s to avoid mid-edit alerts)

Repository Discovery

• Auto-scan a root directory to discover all git repos (BFS, configurable depth)
• Auto-scan workspace folders on startup if no roots configured, and when new folders are added
• Skip directories like node_modules, .terraform, vendor, build, etc. (configurable)
• Changed-only filter — toggle to show only repos with uncommitted changes (Ctrl+D, D)
• Changed repos sort first in the tree for quick access

Sidebar Views

• Active Repos — recently opened repos with terminal status, active repo highlighted in blue
• Changed Files — staged/unstaged/untracked files for the selected repo, grouped by status
• Favorites — pin repos for quick access with Ctrl+D, E; active repo highlighted with blue star
• Repositories — hierarchical tree with common path prefix collapsing, change count badges
• View descriptions — active repo name + branch shown next to "Changed Files" title
• Activity bar badge — total change count across all repos
• Tooltips — hover a repo to see path, branch, change counts, ahead/behind sync status, remote URL, and last commit with relative date
• Ahead/behind badges — ↑N ↓M shows how many commits you are ahead/behind the remote across all views
• Visual highlights — active repo (blue icon + ●), multi-selected (purple check + ✓), repos with changes (yellow), clean repos (green)

Diff Viewing & Review Workflow

• Click a changed file to open VS Code's native diff editor (split view with syntax highlighting)
• Navigate changed files — Ctrl+D, N / Shift+N or ↑↓ buttons in editor title bar to browse files without staging
• Auto-advance on stage — staging a file automatically opens the next pending file's diff, enabling a review-then-stage workflow
• Works from sidebar and editor title bar — both stage buttons advance to the next file
• Auto-close stale diffs — switching to a repo with no changes closes the previous repo's diff
• Context restore — switching back to a repo reopens the last file you were viewing (changes take priority over remembered files)
• Multi-repo diff webview — aggregated diffs across multiple selected repos with react-diff-view
• Per-file stage/unstage controls in the diff view
• Inline blame — GitLens-style current-line blame showing author, date, and commit message (Ctrl+D, G to toggle)

Git Operations

• Stage / Unstage individual files or all files (inline buttons + context menu + editor title bar)
• Discard changes — revert a single file or all changes with confirmation dialog
• Commit with message input box
• Push with progress notification
• Pull with progress notification (Ctrl+D, U)
• Bulk commit/push across multiple selected repos

Branch & Stash Management

• Branch Switcher (Ctrl+D, B) — QuickPick listing all local branches with current branch marked, plus "Create new branch..." option
• Stash Management (Ctrl+D, A) — stash push (with message), list stashes, pop latest, apply specific stash, view stash diffs
• Commit History (Ctrl+D, H) — QuickPick showing last 15 commits, select to view full diff in editor

Search & Navigation

• Search in Repo (Ctrl+D, /) — live git grep QuickPick scoped to the selected repo, opens file at matched line
• Search Active Repos (Ctrl+D, .) — git grep across all recent/active repos with [repo-name] badges
• Search All Repos (Ctrl+D, Shift+/) — git grep across every scanned repo
• Selecting a search result from a different repo auto-switches to it (terminal, changed files, everything)
• Browse Files (Ctrl+D, F) — QuickPick with all files in a repo via git ls-files, instant filtering
• Switch Repo (Ctrl+D, R) — QuickPick sorted by changes, current repo first
• Open in New Window (Ctrl+D, W) — opens the selected repo in a new VS Code window for full native search

File Watcher

• Automatic filesystem watching per repo with 500ms debounce
• Status updates in real-time when files change externally (terminal, other editors)
• Falls back to polling at configurable interval (default 10s)
• Pauses when VS Code loses focus — no wasted disk reads in the background; refreshes immediately on refocus

Performance

• Single shared git instance — all commands share one GitExecutor with a 500ms TTL cache, eliminating redundant git process spawns
• Conditional event firing — tree views only rebuild when data actually changes (~90% fewer rebuilds during idle polling)
• Batched concurrency — refreshAll and _refreshLastCommits limited to 5 concurrent git processes
• Terminal state caching — Active Repos only rescans terminals on open/close events

Status Bar

• Left: repo count + total changes (click to open sidebar)
• Right: active repo name + branch + changes with prominent background (click to switch repo)

Keyboard Shortcuts

All shortcuts use Ctrl+D as a chord prefix — press Ctrl+D, release, then press the key:

On macOS, use Cmd+D instead of Ctrl+D.

Context Menu Actions

Right-click a repository in the tree:

• View Diff / Commit / Push / Pull / AI Commit
• Commit History / Switch Branch / Stash Management
• Browse Files / Open Repo in New Window
• Open Terminal / Open Claude Code / Yolo
• Toggle Favorite / Select (for multi-repo operations)

Right-click a changed file:

• Stage / Unstage (also available as inline icon buttons)
• Discard Changes (with confirmation)

Editor title bar (top-right of diff editor):

• Prev/Next Changed File (↑↓ buttons to browse without staging)
• Stage This File / Unstage This File (with auto-advance to next file)

Changed Files view title:

• Stage All / Unstage All / Discard All

Configuration

Getting Started

1. Install the extension (F5 to run in development, or package with vsce)
2. Add your project root to settings:

   {
     "diffchestrator.scanRoots": ["/home/user/projects"]
   }
   

   Or just open a folder — the extension auto-detects workspace folders if no roots are configured.
3. The extension auto-scans on startup and populates the sidebar
4. Click a repo to see its changed files, click a file to see the diff
5. Use Ctrl+D, C to AI commit with Claude, Ctrl+D, L to open Claude Code

Release

npm run release          # Auto-detect bump from conventional commits
npm run release:patch    # Force patch bump
npm run release:minor    # Force minor bump
npm run release:major    # Force major bump

The release script reads commit messages since the last v* tag, picks the semver bump (feat: = minor, fix: = patch, BREAKING CHANGE = major), commits the version bump, tags, builds, and packages the .vsix.

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install
cd webview-ui && npm install && cd ..

# Build
npm run build          # Extension + webview
npm run compile        # Extension only
npm run build:webview  # Webview only

# Debug
# Press F5 in VS Code to launch Extension Host

Architecture

src/
├── extension.ts              # Activation entrypoint
├── constants.ts              # Command/view/config IDs
├── types.ts                  # Shared TypeScript interfaces
├── git/
│   ├── gitExecutor.ts        # Git CLI wrapper (child_process.execFile)
│   │                         # status, diff, stage, unstage, commit, push, pull,
│   │                         # log, branches, checkout, stash, blame, show, clean, grep
│   └── scanner.ts            # BFS directory scanner
├── providers/
│   ├── activeReposProvider.ts # Recent repos with terminal status indicators
│   ├── repoTreeProvider.ts   # Repo tree with active/selected highlights + tooltips
│   ├── favoritesTreeProvider.ts # Favorites with active highlight
│   ├── changedFilesProvider.ts
│   └── gitContentProvider.ts # TextDocumentContentProvider for diff/show URIs
├── commands/
│   ├── scan.ts               # Scan/rescan
│   ├── stage.ts              # Stage/unstage file + all + auto-advance
│   ├── commit.ts             # Commit (single + bulk)
│   ├── push.ts               # Push (single + bulk)
│   ├── pull.ts               # Pull with progress
│   ├── aiCommit.ts           # Claude CLI AI commit (runs in terminal)
│   ├── openClaude.ts         # Open Claude Code terminal (per-repo tracking)
│   ├── terminal.ts           # Terminal management (shell/claude/yolo per repo)
│   ├── favorites.ts          # Toggle favorites + favorite current repo
│   ├── fileSearch.ts         # Browse files + switch repo + open in new window
│   ├── commitHistory.ts      # Commit history viewer
│   ├── discard.ts            # Discard file/all changes
│   ├── switchBranch.ts       # Branch switcher + create
│   └── stash.ts              # Stash push/list/pop/apply
├── services/
│   ├── repoManager.ts        # Central state + MRU recent repos + cycle
│   ├── fileWatcher.ts        # Per-repo filesystem watcher
│   ├── statusBar.ts          # Status bar items
│   ├── inlineBlame.ts        # Current-line git blame decorations
│   └── workspaceAutoScan.ts  # Auto-scan workspace folders
├── views/
│   └── diffWebviewPanel.ts   # Multi-repo diff webview
└── utils/
    ├── paths.ts
    └── disposable.ts

webview-ui/                   # React app for multi-repo diff
├── src/
│   ├── App.tsx               # Diff viewer with react-diff-view
│   └── vscode.ts             # VS Code API wrapper
└── vite.config.ts            # Builds to dist/webview/

scripts/
└── release.mjs               # Auto-detect semver bump + commit + tag + build

Tech Stack

• Extension: TypeScript, VS Code Extension API, esbuild
• Git: child_process.execFile (no shell=true)
• Webview: React 19, Vite, react-diff-view
• AI: Claude Code CLI integration
• No backend server — everything runs in-process via the VS Code extension host