VSCode Git Backup & Sync Extension

Git Backup and Sync is an extension for Visual Studio Code, aiming to provide a way to backup and sync your work in progress through the use of git.

This extension fundamentally manages an individual backup branch for branches, pushes your work in progress to the backup branch, but still keeps those changes unstaged on your own branch.

Disclaimer: this extension is PRIMARILY designed to be used on feature branches that only one person edits, and while can support a few people, doesn't work well when many people are actively making commits to the remote branch.

Use Case 1: Backing up Work In Progress

Currently, when we have work in progress, we generally don't want to commit it to our remote repository to avoid poluting the git history. On the other hand, we want to backup our changes in case of lossing it. With git currently, the best option I know of is to fix the git history eventually with interactive rebases and force pushes. This is always a hassle.

With Git Backup & Sync, after creating a backup branch with git-backup-sync.createBackupBranch, whenever you want to make a backup, just run git-backup-sync.backup. Or if autobackup is configured, whenever text files are saved, it is automatically backed up. And the biggest benefit is that all your local changes are still uncommitted on your current branch.

Use Case 2: Syncing WIP across multiple devices

For people working across multiple devices, syncing your work in progress across the devices is also annoying; similar to making backups, yes you can make commits and push, but often times you don't want to polute git history.

With Git Backup & Sync, after creating a backup branch with git-backup-sync.createBackupBranch, before switching devices, run git-backup-sync.backup, and on your other device, run git-backup-sync.loadBackup. Your other device then get's all the uncommitted changes from your first device.

Features

Git Backup & Sync currently supports the following commands:

• createBackupBranch: creates a backup branch for your current branch. Unless overriden, branch xxx's backup branch will be named gbs-backup-xxx.
• backup: Backups your current branch onto the created backup branch.
• loadBackup: Loads your current branch's backup from origin. Note that this stashes your local uncommitted changes
• syncBackupBranch: Syncs your current branch's backup branch to be based off of your current branch. This is necessary when you committed to your current branch, or pulled in new changes.
• retireBackupBranch: When you no longer want to backup your current branch, removes the backup branch's branch info file entry.

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

• git-backup-sync.backupBranchNamePrefix: The default prefix of the backup branch name. This defaults to "gbs-backup-".
• git-backup-sync.defaultAutoBackupBranches: Whether to auto backup upon detecting changes in VSCode. This defaults to false.
• git-backup-sync.defaultBackupUpstreamName: Name of the default upstream name. This defaults to origin.

And for more customizations using the "branch info" file, there are the following settings:

• git-backup-sync.branchInfo.enable: Whether to enable the branch info file. Enabling this file allows for more granular customization per branch, at the cost of needing to manage an additional config file. This defaults to false.
• git-backup-sync.branchInfo.path: Points to the location of the branch info file. This defaults to .bbinfo.
• git-backup-sync.branchInfo.shouldCommitBranchInfoFile: When creating a new Backup Branch, do you want to commit the branch info file change. (This is useful for sharing across devices). This defaults to false.

These settings don't need to be shared and can be different across clones, even including branchInfoPath. (But if one wants to sync changes across devices, they need to use the same backup branch. )

GitHub

The code for this extension is available on github at: https://github.com/maxyu1115/git-backup-sync

Want to Contribute?

I have already created a few issues. Feel free to grab one, work on it, and make a pull request. If you have other ideas, feel free to start a thread in discussions.

To setup your dev environment, you need npm as well as vscode. After cloning, run npm install to setup, and F5 to build and run the extension locally.

And after making your changes, please document a short summary in the CHANGELOG.md, following the current format.