AuthorHue

Know who wrote every line - and how long ago - without leaving your editor.

AuthorHue adds a colored bar to your gutter for every line in any git-tracked file. Each author gets a distinct color. The bar fades as the line gets older. Your own code, your teammates' code, and untouched legacy code are all instantly visible - without changing a single character of your theme.

How it works

AuthorHue runs git blame on every file you open and draws a 4px colored bar in the gutter next to each line:

That's it. Your syntax highlighting, font, and theme stay exactly as they are.

Author colors

Each unique contributor is assigned one of 8 distinct hues. The assignment is consistent across files for the whole session - if Sara is coral in auth.ts, she's coral in utils.ts too.

You (matched by git config user.email) always get blue - slot 0.

You can override any author's color in settings.

Age fading

The gutter bar fades from full color toward dark grey as the line gets older. The curve is logarithmic - most of the interesting variation happens in the first 30 days, then it gradually dims from there.

Hover tooltip

Hover over any line to see:

• Author name
• Exact date and relative age (e.g. "2 weeks ago")
• Commit hash
• Commit message

Set authorhue.showHoverInfo to false if you want the gutter colors without the hover popup.

Commands

Open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) and search "AuthorHue":

Settings

Go to Settings -> Extensions -> AuthorHue or add these to your settings.json:

{
  // Turn AuthorHue on or off at startup
  "authorhue.enabled": true,

  // Show the colored gutter bar next to each line
  "authorhue.showGutterBar": true,

  // Show blame details when hovering a line
  "authorhue.showHoverInfo": true,

  // How many days before a line reaches minimum brightness
  "authorhue.maxAgeDays": 365,

  // Minimum bar brightness for the oldest lines (0.0-1.0)
  "authorhue.minBrightness": 0.12,

  // Override the color for a specific author by their git email
  "authorhue.customAuthorColors": {
    "jane@company.com": "#e74c3c",
    "bob@company.com": "#2ecc71"
  },

  // Glob patterns for files AuthorHue should never decorate
  "authorhue.excludePatterns": [
    "**/vendor/**",
    "**/node_modules/**",
    "**/*.min.js"
  ]
}

Requirements

• Git must be installed and available in your PATH
• The file must be inside a git repository
• Works with any VS Code color theme (light or dark)

Running locally

# 1. Clone or unzip the extension folder
cd AuthorHue

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Open in VS Code
code .

# 4. Press F5 - a second VS Code window opens (Extension Development Host)
#    Open any file in a git repo in that window to see AuthorHue in action

Why gutter-only?

Most code annotation tools change your syntax colors, which means you have to choose between the tool and your theme. AuthorHue doesn't touch your text at all. The gutter is unused space - a 4px bar there gives you all the information you need without competing with anything.