Comment Linking

💬 Comment Linking extension for VS Code

🔗 Link between comments in code. Create anchors and jump to them from anywhere

🎬 Examples

🧠 How it works

• Add an anchor comment where you want to jump to: [[AnchorID|Some anchor]]

• Reference it elsewhere: [[#AnchorID|Go to anchor]]

• Click the link while holding Ctrl (Cmd on macOS) to jump to the anchor. The Anchors view shows all anchors across your workspace

• Basic Link ↔ Anchor interaction:

  

• Anchors view (tree of all anchors):

  Note: This demo shows the legacy anchor syntax

  Click to see legacy syntax demo
  (enable commentLinking.enableLegacySyntax in settings)

  

  

✅ Supported languages and file formats

• JavaScript (.js)
• TypeScript (.ts)
• TypeScript React (.tsx)
• JavaScript React (.jsx)
• Python (.py)
• Rust (.rs)
• Go (.go)
• C (.c)
• C++ (.cpp, .cxx, .cc, .hpp, .h)
• C# (.cs)
• JSON (.json)
• JSON With Comments (.jsonc)
• Markdown (.md) - full text support with special syntax

⚙️ Custom File Types

You can extend support to any file type by configuring custom comment syntax in VS Code settings:

Open Settings → Search for commentLinking.customFileTypes OR directly edit your settings.json file

{
  "commentLinking.customFileTypes": {
    ".vue": "js",
    ".sh": "python"
    // Other extensions you want to add support for
  }
}

Configuration format:

• Key (e.g. ".vue") - File extension to add support for
• Value - Comment syntax type to use:
  • "js" - Uses // comments (like JavaScript/TypeScript)
  • "python" - Uses # comments (like Python/Shell)

📂 Indexing scope & exclusions

• Scans all workspace folders for supported file extensions
• Gitignore support: Uses .gitignore patterns by default (disable via commentLinking.useGitignore setting)
• Custom exclusions: Create .commentlinkingignore file in project root to exclude additional files/directories
• Priority: .commentlinkingignore takes precedence over .gitignore patterns

✨ Features

• 🔍 Anchors tree view to browse anchors across files
• 🎯 Inline links in comments that jump to anchors
• 🖍️ Smart decorations to highlight only the preview text
• 📋 Copy anchor ID from the Anchors view

📦 Installation

1. Install the extension
2. Reload VS Code window (you'll be prompted on first install)

📊 Debugging & Logging

To view detailed indexing logs and performance information:

1. Open VS Code Output panel (View > Output)
2. Select "Comment Linking" from the dropdown
3. Watch real-time indexing progress and timing information

🧪 Development & Testing

To test changes during development:

1. Press F5 to launch Extension Development Host
2. Make changes to the code and save
3. In the test window, run Developer: Reload Window to see updates

To build and install the extension manually:

1. Install all dependencies: pnpm install
2. Build the extension package: pnpm package
3. Install the generated .vsix file in VS Code: Extensions > Install from VSIX...

✅ Roadmap / To‑Do

• [ ] 📖 Create Markdown preview with link and anchor support
• [ ] 🔗 Add support for creating anchors and links without preview text in backlinks
• [ ] 🔀 Add sorting by line numbers in anchor tree view
• [ ] ⚙️ Add support for custom comment types for specific files
• [ ] 🎨 Add functionality to configure anchor and link styles
• [ ] 🔄 Add functionality to disable new syntax if users want to use only legacy syntax
• [ ] 🏷️ Add button in anchor tree to toggle between displaying anchor IDs and preview text
• [ ] 🔍 Add support for displaying all links to a specific anchor in the editor
• [ ] 📚 Add and host comprehensive documentation
• [x] 🧵 Support multiline comments (block and triple-quote styles)
• [x] 🌐 Add more languages (e.g., Go, Rust) and support .jsx/.tsx
• [x] 📁 Add support for using .gitignore file as default exclusion file

Made with 😡 by Viktor Kratiuk