Commit Echo

Your workday, echoed back to you.

Commit Echo is a local-first VS Code extension that combines today’s commits with the repository’s current working-tree snapshot and turns that evidence into a concise standup. Its Activity Bar sidebar keeps generation, project tracking, notes, preferences, and the latest report in one place.

Commit Echo uses deterministic, evidence-backed rules and works without AI, accounts, backend services, or cloud storage.

Current features

• Detects the active workspace and Git repository.
• Provides an Activity Bar sidebar with direct generation controls and the latest report.
• Tracks repositories locally and generates one combined daily standup across projects opened in separate VS Code windows.
• Generates a Monday-to-now weekly summary across the current workspace and all locally tracked projects.
• Continues to include every distinct Git repository in the current multi-root workspace without requiring it to be tracked first.
• Reads the repository name and current branch.
• Reads today’s non-merge commits for the configured Git user, using local-day boundaries.
• Detects the current staged, modified, deleted, and untracked file snapshot without claiming when those changes occurred.
• Separates source, test, documentation, configuration, and other file signals.
• Optionally analyzes committed, staged, and unstaged diffs locally for changed symbols and line counts.
• Generates conservative Done, In Progress, Tomorrow, and Blockers sections.
• Shows concise commit, branch, file, and status evidence beneath generated items.
• Captures work Git cannot see with CommitEcho: Remember This and includes it in today’s standup.
• Optionally records local file-save timestamps to confirm which uncommitted files were worked on today.
• Shows an optional once-per-day reminder 15 minutes before the configured workday end, with a direct Generate Now action.
• Saves and browses the latest generated standup per repository and local date using JSON in VS Code-managed local storage.
• Saves combined daily standups in the same local history without persisting repository root paths.
• Displays the standup in a native VS Code Output channel.
• Opens every generated standup as an editable Markdown review with copy, save, and regenerate actions.
• Preserves reviewed wording in local history without changing the original evidence-backed result.
• Supports Detailed Evidence, Concise, and Slack-friendly output formats.
• Copies the generated standup to the clipboard on request.
• Handles missing workspaces, non-Git folders, missing Git, and no-activity days gracefully.

How standups are generated

1. Commit Echo identifies the active or locally tracked repositories, their branches, and configured Git users.
2. It collects today’s non-merge commits and the current staged, modified, deleted, and untracked file snapshot.
3. It adds any Remember This notes and, when enabled, local diff and file-save evidence.
4. Deterministic rules turn that evidence into conservative Done Today, In Progress, Tomorrow, and Blockers sections.
5. The result is shown in the sidebar and CommitEcho Output channel, saved to local JSON history, and opened as an editable Markdown review.

Commit Echo does not invent activity. Uncommitted files are labeled as a current Git snapshot unless same-day save evidence exists. Tomorrow is included only when the branch supports a meaningful next step, and unknown blockers are reported as not recorded.

Example output

CommitEcho — Standup

Repository: api-service
Branch: feature/refresh-token-rotation

Done Today
- Implemented refresh-token rotation.
  Evidence: commit 8c2f6d1

In Progress (current Git snapshot)
- Uncommitted changes detected for refresh token rotation across 2 source files and 1 test file.
  Evidence: branch feature/refresh-token-rotation; 3 files [2 modified, 1 untracked]: src/auth.ts, src/session.ts, test/auth.test.ts

Tomorrow
- Continue refresh token rotation work.
  Evidence: branch feature/refresh-token-rotation

Blockers
No blockers recorded.

Privacy

CommitEcho reads development metadata only:

• Repository and branch names
• Commit hashes, authors, dates, and messages
• Relative paths and Git working-tree statuses

By default, CommitEcho does not read source-file contents. When local diff analysis is explicitly enabled, raw Git patches are processed in memory and immediately discarded after extracting file paths, line counts, and identifier names. Raw diffs are never placed in evidence, logs, storage, or network requests.

Passive activity tracking is also disabled by default. When enabled, it stores only the save timestamp, repository ID/name, repository-relative path, and VS Code language ID. It never stores file contents, absolute paths, keystrokes, or idle-time measurements. Sensitive/generated paths are excluded by default.

Project tracking is explicit. When you run CommitEcho: Track Current Project, Commit Echo stores the repository name, hashed ID, absolute local path, and tracking timestamp in projects.json so it can find that repository from other VS Code windows. The path remains on your machine, is never included in generated standups or history, and can be removed with CommitEcho: Manage Tracked Projects.

Commit Echo has no network calls, analytics, AI provider, account system, or backend. Manual notes are stored locally as date-partitioned JSONL and scoped to the active repository when available. Reminder state is stored in one local JSON file; no notification or schedule data leaves VS Code. Editable review documents are temporary local Markdown files. Saving a review stores its final text alongside the original generated result and evidence in local history.

Optional local diff analysis

Diff analysis is disabled by default and must be enabled for each workspace:

{
	"commitecho.diffAnalysis.enabled": true
}

When enabled, CommitEcho analyzes:

• Diffs for today’s matching commits
• Staged changes
• Unstaged changes

It does not read untracked-file contents because Git has no baseline diff for them. Binary files, submodules, external diff tools, text-conversion drivers, generated folders, lockfiles, environment files, likely secret/key files, and user-configured exclusion patterns are skipped.

Available settings:

• commitecho.diffAnalysis.enabled
• commitecho.diffAnalysis.maxCharacters
• commitecho.diffAnalysis.exclude

Optional file-save tracking

Enable passive save tracking for a workspace:

{
	"commitecho.activityTracking.enabled": true
}

Only saves made while VS Code and the extension are running are recorded; tracking is not retroactive. Events are kept in the same date-partitioned local JSONL event store as manual notes. Saved-file evidence is used only when the file is also present in the current uncommitted Git snapshot, preventing clean or reverted saves from becoming standup claims.

Available settings:

• commitecho.activityTracking.enabled
• commitecho.activityTracking.exclude

Requirements

• VS Code 1.134 or newer
• Git installed and available on PATH
• A Git repository opened as a VS Code workspace
• user.name or user.email configured in Git for commit filtering

Using Commit Echo

1. Open a Git repository in VS Code.
2. Select the Commit Echo icon in the Activity Bar to open the sidebar.
3. Optionally choose an output format or enable the reminder under Preferences, then select Save Preferences.
4. Select Generate Standup for the active repository.
5. Add context Git cannot see under Manual context, select Remember This, and regenerate the report.
6. For combined reports across separate VS Code windows, open each repository once and select Track Current.
7. Select Generate Daily Standup to combine today’s work from the current workspace and every tracked repository.
8. Select Generate Weekly Summary for a project-by-project report covering Monday through the current local date.
9. Use the latest-report buttons to copy, edit, save, or regenerate the result. Editing opens a Markdown review; standard Ctrl+S/Cmd+S saves reviewed text to local history.
10. Run CommitEcho: View History from the Command Palette when you want to browse repository, daily, and weekly reports.

The reminder time is your workday end, not the notification time. Commit Echo notifies you 15 minutes beforehand while VS Code is running. If VS Code opens after that reminder should have appeared and no reminder was shown that day, it appears after startup.

Standup formats

• Detailed Evidence is the default and includes visible commit, branch, file, save, and local-diff evidence.
• Concise keeps Done, In Progress, Next, and Blocked sections without evidence lines.
• Slack-friendly uses compact Markdown and emoji headings for chat tools.

The selected format applies to repository standups, combined daily standups, and weekly summaries. Structured evidence remains preserved in local history even when a concise format hides evidence from the rendered text.

Current limitations

• Without optional file-save tracking, Git working-tree status has no timestamps, so CommitEcho labels it as a current snapshot rather than today’s activity.
• Diff analysis extracts deterministic identifiers and change counts; it does not attempt AI-level semantic interpretation.
• At most 20 matching commits are diff-analyzed per generation run.
• Untracked files remain metadata-only until they have a Git baseline.
• Generate Standup uses the active editor’s repository; Generate Daily Standup scans current workspace repositories plus every locally tracked repository.
• Weekly summaries cover the current local calendar week from Monday through generation time; they are not custom-date reports.
• Moved, deleted, or inaccessible tracked repositories are skipped until they are removed or tracked again from their new location.
• Only the configured Git identity is used to identify the developer’s commits.
• A Tomorrow item is generated only when a meaningful non-generic branch name supports a conservative next step.
• Debug/session tracking and optional AI are not implemented.

Storage policy

CommitEcho uses date-partitioned JSON/JSONL files in VS Code-managed local storage. Tracked project locations are stored in one local projects.json registry, and temporary Markdown files support editable reviews. The project intentionally has no SQLite, embedded database, database server, or other database dependency.

Product principle

CommitEcho reconstructs work for the developer who performed it. It is not employee surveillance or productivity scoring.

License

CommitEcho is proprietary software. Installation and normal use are permitted under the included CommitEcho Proprietary Software License. The source repository is not publicly distributed.