Git Hover — Blame, Diff & Issue Links

Rich git blame on hover: commit details, line-level diff and clickable issue links. A lightweight GitLens alternative — zero runtime dependencies, powered only by your local git.

Features

• Per-line blame annotations: shows author · date · summary as an inline label (font color #527b6f, no background by default; both configurable). When a background is set it wraps the text only and never highlights the code line. By default the annotation is shown only on the line under the cursor; disable "show only active line" in settings to annotate every line.
• Rich hover card: hover over any line to see:
  • Commit summary, author, committer, date with timezone, and the full commit hash;
  • The author name is a mailto: link — the email stays hidden and is revealed on hovering the name (click to send an email);
  • Issue Linking: issue references in commit messages (e.g. #123, JIRA-456) are rendered as clickable links that open the issue page; all related issues found in the full commit message are also listed;
  • The diff of this exact line in that commit;
  • A one-click "View full commit" link and a shortcut to the Issue Linking settings.
• View full commit: opens the full git show patch of the commit for the current file in a side editor (with diff syntax highlighting).
• Copy commit hash: via the context menu or the command palette.
• Uncommitted line detection: lines not yet committed are labeled as "Uncommitted (working tree changes)".
• Status bar toggle: $(git-commit) Git Hover: On/Off in the bottom-right corner; click it or press Alt+B.
• Configurable: annotation format, date format, whitespace handling, summary length and more.

Usage

1. Open a project inside a Git repository with VS Code.
2. Open any tracked file — blame annotations appear at the end of the line.
3. Hover over a line to see the commit details and the line-level diff; click "View full commit" in the hover card to open the patch.
4. Use the context menu for "View Full Commit / Copy Commit Hash", or search Git Hover in the command palette for all commands.

Commands

Settings (settings.json)

{
  "gitHover.enabled": true,             // enable per-line blame
  "gitHover.showOnOpen": true,          // show automatically when a file is opened
  "gitHover.decorationFormat": "${author} · ${date} · ${summary}",
  "gitHover.dateFormat": "yyyy-MM-dd",  // supports yyyy MM dd HH mm ss
  "gitHover.maxSummaryLength": 60,
  "gitHover.ignoreWhitespace": true,    // git blame -w
  "gitHover.prefix": "⎇ ",              // distinctive prefix before each annotation (any character, or empty)
  "gitHover.accentColor": "#527b6f",           // font color; empty = editor default foreground
  "gitHover.inlineBackgroundColor": "",        // background of the blame text only; empty = no background (default)
  "gitHover.inlineGap": "20ch",                // left gap between code and blame text (CSS length: 2ch / 1.5em / 16px)
  "gitHover.showOnlyActiveLine": true,         // only annotate the cursor line; false = annotate every line

  // ---- Issue Linking (inspired by Git Graph) ----
  "gitHover.issueLinking.enabled": true,      // render issue references as clickable links in the hover card
  "gitHover.issueLinking.autoDetect": true,   // auto-detect rules from the origin remote (GitHub/GitLab/Gitee) when none are configured
  "gitHover.issueLinking.rules": [            // custom rules: regex pattern + url template ($1~$9 reference capture groups)
    { "pattern": "#(\\d+)", "url": "https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/$1" },
    { "pattern": "JIRA-(\\d+)", "url": "https://jira.example.com/browse/JIRA-$1" }
  ]
}

Issue Linking

Inspired by the Issue Linking design of Git Graph:

• Rule = pattern (regular expression matching an issue reference) + url (issue page template, $1~$9 reference the capture groups).
• Global: configure in your user settings.json, applied to every project.
• Per project: configure in the project's .vscode/settings.json (workspace/folder settings) to override the global rules (scope is resource).
• Auto-detect: when no rules are configured anywhere and issueLinking.autoDetect is true (default), the extension reads the repository's origin remote and generates a default #123 → issue page rule for GitHub / GitLab / Gitee repositories.
• Where it applies: in the hover card — issue references in the commit summary become clickable links, and the full commit message (subject + body) is scanned to list all related issues, opened in your browser on click.
• Rules are matched in order; earlier rules win on overlap; invalid regular expressions are ignored.

Common rule examples:

Running multiple git plugins? Every annotation rendered by this extension starts with ⎇ , and the hover card footer says "Provided by Git Hover". For extra visibility, set gitHover.accentColor to a distinctive color.

Development / Debugging

npm install        # installs typescript / @types/vscode / @types/node (dev dependencies only)
npm run compile    # compiles src/ -> out/extension.js
# or npm run watch for incremental compilation

Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host, or run Tasks: Run Task → npm: compile from the command palette.

Packaging as .vsix (optional)

npx @vscode/vsce package

Produces git-hover-<version>.vsix (version taken from package.json), installable via "Install from VSIX…" in VS Code.

How it works

• Parses git blame --line-porcelain to resolve the commit (hash, author, committer, time, summary) of every line.
• Renders inline annotations at the end of the line using the after attachment of TextEditorDecorationType.
• On hover, runs git log -L <line>,<line>:<file> -1 -p to extract the exact diff of that line in its commit.
• Refreshes on file switch / save; pure local git calls, no network services involved.

Notes

• Requires git installed locally and the file to be inside a Git repository (subdirectories and relative paths are supported).
• Untracked files and non-file schemes (remote/virtual documents) are not annotated.

License

MIT © Coremory