gitmit for VS Code
Convention-compliant commit messages from your staged changes, right in the Source Control panel. gitmit follows your team's commitlint rules, keeps secrets on your machine, works offline, and can split a messy set of changes into focused commits.
Website and live demo · Documentation · CLI on npm · Source
Features
✨ Generate a commit message
Stage your changes and click the ✨ sparkle button at the top of the Source Control panel (or run gitmit: Generate Commit Message). Pick one of three suggestions and it goes into the commit message box, where you can still edit it.
- Rules first, AI second. The commit type (
feat, fix, docs, ...) and scope come from deterministic rules. When the rules are sure (only docs changed, a version bump), the AI can't override them.
- Nothing staged? gitmit offers to stage everything for you.
🌳 Split into focused commits
Staged a fix, a dependency bump and some docs at once? Click the 🌳 tree button (or run gitmit: Split into Focused Commits). gitmit proposes one commit per logical change and opens a panel where you can:
- read each commit's message and the changes in it,
- edit any message,
- move a change to another commit, or into a new one (messages are rewritten),
- create all the commits with one click.
Splitting only touches the staging area, never your files. The plan is rehearsed before anything changes, and if something fails (for example a pre-commit hook), your original commit and staged changes are restored exactly.
📏 Your team's rules
gitmit reads the same configuration as the gitmit command line tool:
- Project config:
gitmit.config.ts, .gitmitrc.json, or a "gitmit" key in package.json.
- commitlint: if your repository has a commitlint config, gitmit adopts its types, scopes and length limits, and checks every suggestion against it before you see it.
- Ticket IDs: on a branch like
feat/PROJ-123-login, gitmit can add PROJ-123 to every message.
See the configuration docs.
🔒 Secrets stay on your machine
Before anything is sent to a remote AI, gitmit scans the staged changes for API keys, tokens, private keys and files like .env. If it finds something, nothing is sent: you see what was found and can unstage it, or choose to send a version with the secrets replaced by markers.
Getting started
- Install the extension.
- Optional: run gitmit: Set API Key and paste an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Without a key, gitmit writes messages offline from rules alone.
- Stage some changes and click ✨ in the Source Control panel.
AI providers
| Provider |
Setup |
| OpenAI |
Run gitmit: Set API Key and choose OpenAI. |
| Anthropic |
Run gitmit: Set API Key and choose Anthropic. |
| Ollama (local models) |
Set gitmit.provider to ollama. Nothing leaves your machine. |
| Offline rules |
Works with no setup. No AI, no network. |
Keys are stored in VS Code's encrypted secret storage, never in settings files. gitmit also finds keys where the CLI does: the OPENAI_API_KEY and ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variables, and ~/.config/gitmit/.env.
Commands
| Command |
What it does |
| gitmit: Generate Commit Message |
Suggest messages for the staged changes and fill the commit box. |
| gitmit: Split into Focused Commits |
Propose a split, review it, and create the commits. |
| gitmit: Set API Key |
Save an OpenAI or Anthropic key in secret storage. |
| gitmit: Remove API Key |
Delete a saved key. |
| gitmit: Open Settings |
Open gitmit's settings. |
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
gitmit.provider |
auto |
auto, openai, anthropic, ollama or rules. auto uses the project config if it names a provider, otherwise the first provider with a key, otherwise offline rules. |
gitmit.model |
(provider default) |
For example gpt-5-mini or claude-opus-5-5. |
gitmit.ollamaHost |
http://localhost:11434 |
Ollama server URL. |
gitmit.showSuggestions |
true |
Pick from several suggestions. When off, the top suggestion goes straight into the commit box. |
gitmit.onSecretFound |
ask |
ask, abort or redact, when the staged changes look like they contain a secret. |
gitmit.configPath |
(auto) |
A gitmit config file, relative to the repository root. |
Troubleshooting
- Details of any error are in View → Output → gitmit.
- "Could not load the commitlint config": your commitlint config extends a preset that isn't installed (run your package manager's install), or it's written in TypeScript (
commitlint.config.ts), which the extension doesn't load. Use a .js or .json commitlint config, or set "commitlint": false in the gitmit config.
- More: see the troubleshooting docs.
Also available
- Command line:
npm install -g @gitmit/cli, then gitmit in any repository. Includes a git hook that fills in a suggestion whenever you run git commit.
- Try it in your browser: gitmit-frontend.vercel.app
License
MIT
