🗿 Vestige - Temporal Code Intelligence

Uncover the traces of your codebase through time

Vestige brings temporal awareness directly into your code editor. See which code is ancient, which is churning, and which just changed—all without leaving your file.

✨ Features

🗺️ Heatmap Explorer

Files in the VS Code Explorer are automatically color-coded based on their git history:

• 🔥 High Churn - Files that change frequently (red indicator)
• 🗿 Fossils - Ancient, untouched code (grey indicator)
• ✨ Recent - Fresh changes (green indicator)

Inline Temporal Annotations

Vestige analyzes your git history and adds intuitive indicators right in your editor:

• 🔥 High Churn - Code that's been modified frequently (default: 10+ changes)
• 🗿 Fossils - Ancient, untouched code (default: 1+ year old)
• ✨ Recent - Fresh changes (less than 7 days old)

Rich Status Bar

Live metrics displayed in your status bar:

• Stability Score (0-100%): How stable is this file?
• Top Contributor: Who "owns" this file?
• Example: 🛡️ 85% | 👤 Sarah (60%)

Rich Hover Information

Hover over any line to see:

• When it was last changed
• Who modified it
• Commit hash and date
• File-level statistics (total commits, contributors, churn rate)

🕰️ Time Travel

View the complete commit history of your file in a beautiful timeline:

• Chronological commit list
• Author information
• Commit messages
• 👁️ View File at Commit - Click to see exactly what the file looked like at that point in time
• File evolution statistics

🔍 Smart Refactoring Hints

Discover architectural insights:

• Coupled Files - Files that frequently change together with your current file
• Helps identify hidden dependencies and potential refactoring opportunities
• Example: "🔗 Coupled with: utils.js (80% correlation)"

🚀 Installation

1. Open VS Code
2. Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
3. Search for "Vestige"
4. Click Install

📖 Usage

Automatic Analysis

Vestige automatically analyzes files when you open them (if they're tracked by git).

Manual Commands

• Vestige: Analyze Current File - Force re-analysis
• Vestige: Show File Timeline - Open timeline view in sidebar
• Vestige: Toggle Annotations - Turn decorations on/off
• Vestige: Clear Cache - Clear analysis cache

⚙️ Configuration

Customize Vestige in your VS Code settings:

{
  "vestige.enabled": true,
  "vestige.churnThreshold": 10,
  "vestige.fossilThreshold": 365,
  "vestige.showInlineAnnotations": true
}

🎯 Use Cases

Code Review

Quickly identify risky areas:

• High churn zones that might have bugs
• Ancient code that might need refactoring
• Recent changes that need attention
• Files with shared ownership (many contributors)

Onboarding

Understand codebase history:

• See which code is stable vs. evolving
• Identify key contributors and "owners"
• Understand refactoring patterns
• Discover coupling between components

Architecture Analysis

Observe patterns over time:

• Track module stability
• Identify tightly coupled files
• Find "hidden dependencies"
• Measure code evolution

🔧 Requirements

• VS Code 1.80.0 or higher
• Git repository (Vestige only works with git-tracked files)

🐛 Known Limitations

• Only works with git repositories
• Performance may vary on very large files (10,000+ lines)
• Cache is memory-only (cleared on restart)

📝 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Built with ❤️ for developers who care about code history

🗿 Vestige - Because every line has a story