Copyright Fold

VS Code extension that auto-collapses copyright and license headers in source files.

Copyright headers are mandated by many organisations, but they add noise for frequent contributors. This extension satisfies both sides: compliance/legal gets the headers in the file, engineers get a clean view.

Features

• Automatically folds copyright/license headers when files are opened
• Detects headers across 30+ programming languages
• Uses VS Code's native folding — click the fold chevron to expand
• Configurable keywords, scan depth, and language exclusions

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace, or search for "Copyright Fold" in the Extensions panel.

How It Works

1. When a file opens, the extension scans the first lines for a comment block
2. If the comment contains copyright-related keywords, it registers a fold range
3. The fold is applied automatically, collapsing the header to a single line
4. Click the fold chevron (or use Ctrl+Shift+]) to expand

Configuration

Default keywords: copyright, (c), ©, license, spdx, all rights reserved, licensed under, permission is hereby granted, redistribution

Commands

Supported Languages

Detects comment styles for: C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Rust, Swift, Kotlin, Scala, Dart, Python, Ruby, Perl, Shell, HTML, XML, Vue, Svelte, Astro, SQL, Haskell, Lua, Lisp, Clojure, MATLAB, PowerShell, Batch, PHP, Erlang, Elixir, and more.

Unknown languages use a broad fallback that covers all common comment styles.

Acknowledgements

Inspired by vscode-inline-fold by Mohammed Al Amri, which is unfortunately no longer maintained. That project pioneered the approach of using VS Code decorations to visually hide inline content — this extension adapts the concept for multi-line copyright headers using VS Code's native folding API.

License

MIT