Gistry

A commit graph for VS Code and Cursor that shows branch lanes, stacked PRs and conventional commits.

Gistry's commit graph: a stack of three PRs, an open and a merged branch, conventional-commit tags, PR numbers and an author card showing a commit co-authored with Claude

Stacked PRs

The billing/ui branch, third in a stack of three. Each PR's commits have their own color, and the details drawer shows the stack with PR numbers and status

Stacks are detected from Graphite metadata, GitHub PR base branches or branch history. Each PR gets its own color along the lane and a 1/3-style pill. The details drawer shows the whole stack with PR status, and flags branches that need a restack.

Conventional commits

Commits tagged feat, fix, refactor, docs, perf and merge, in an aligned column with scopes. The drawer shows a breaking change

feat(api)!: … becomes a colored type and scope tag followed by the description. Breaking changes are outlined, with the BREAKING CHANGE: note shown in the drawer. (#123) suffixes and GitHub merge commits become clickable PR pills.

Spotlight

Clicking through the legend highlights each PR in the stack, then an open branch, a merged branch, all fixes and all features

Hover or click a PR, branch, commit type or scope in the legend to highlight its commits. Everything else fades back.

Also

Click a commit to see its message, co-authors and changed files. Click a file to open its diff.
Hover an author for a summary card with the files changed and the branch.
AI co-authors such as Claude, Cursor and Copilot get a badge on the author's avatar.
Right-click a commit to copy its SHA or message, create a branch from it, or check it out.
Keyboard: ↑ ↓ or j k move between commits, and Esc closes the drawer.
Works in a narrow sidebar and in light, dark and high-contrast themes.

Gistry in a narrow sidebar, in a dark theme with the stack drawer open and in a light theme showing all branches

Usage

Click the Gistry icon in the Activity Bar, or run Gistry: Open Commit History to open it in an editor tab. Use the branch menu to switch between the current branch, another branch, a stack or all branches.

Requires VS Code 1.85+ or a compatible editor (Cursor, VSCodium, Windsurf) with the built-in Git extension enabled.

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`gistry.avatars`	`remote`	`remote` loads author photos from GitHub or Gravatar. `initials` makes no network requests.
`gistry.pageSize`	`200`	Commits to load at a time. More load as you scroll.
`gistry.github.pullRequests`	`true`	Show PR status and stack bases from GitHub, using your existing GitHub sign-in. Never prompts on its own.

Privacy

Gistry runs git locally and sends no telemetry. The only network requests are for avatars and, when you're signed in to GitHub, PR data for github.com repositories. Both can be turned off above.

Design inspired by @kvnkld. Report an issue · Contributing · MIT License

Gistry — Commit History

Gistry

Gistry

Stacked PRs

Conventional commits

Spotlight

Also

Usage

Settings

Privacy