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

• Markdown Preview with anchors and links support:

  

  ✨ Supports back/forward navigation, live reload on file changes, and opens linked Markdown files within the same preview

✨ 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
• 📖 Markdown Preview with anchors and links support
• 🙈 Ignore files on all levels (.gitignore, .commentlinkingignore, .git/.commentlinkingignore)

✅ Supported languages and file formats

• C (.c)
• C# (.cs)
• C++ (.cpp, .cxx, .cc, .hpp, .h)
• Clojure (.clj, .cljs, .cljc)
• CSS (.css, .scss, .sass, .less)
• Dart (.dart)
• Dockerfile (Dockerfile, dockerfile, Dockerfile.*)
• Go (.go)
• HTML (.html, .htm) - supports HTML, JavaScript, and CSS comments
• Java (.java)
• JavaScript (.js)
• JavaScript React (.jsx)
• JSON (.json)
• JSON With Comments (.jsonc)
• Kotlin (.kt, .kts)
• Makefile (Makefile, makefile, .mk)
• Markdown (.md) - full text support
• PHP (.php)
• PowerShell (.ps1, .psm1, .psd1)
• Python (.py)
• Ruby (.rb)
• Rust (.rs)
• Shell (.sh, .bash, .zsh)
• Svelte (.svelte)
• Swift (.swift)
• TOML (.toml)
• TypeScript (.ts)
• TypeScript React (.tsx)
• Vue (.vue)
• XML (.xml)
• YAML (.yaml, .yml)

📂 Indexing scope & exclusions

• Scans all workspace folders for supported file extensions

🙈 Supported ignore files

📦 Installation

• Search for Comment Linking in VS Code Marketplace and install
• Reload VS Code window (you'll be prompted on first install)

To install a manually built version (Snapshot Build):

⚠️ This requires Node.js and pnpm installed on your machine

git clone https://github.com/kratiuk/commentlinking.git
cd commentlinking
pnpm install
pnpm package # This will generate a .vsix file

Then in VS Code: Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX... and select the generated file

📊 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

✅ Roadmap / To‑Do

• [ ] 🔗 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 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] 📖 Create Markdown preview with link and anchor support
• [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