GitHub Control Center

A VSCode extension built by developers, for developers — to keep your GitHub situation under control: the PRs waiting for your review and your own open PRs, with a badge count on the activity bar, toast notifications, a GitHub-like PR page, full in-editor code review (diffs, line comments, pending reviews — no checkout needed), and one-click actions (review, merge, checkout) — all without leaving the editor.

Features

• Two views in the activity bar container: To Review (PRs where your review is requested, including team requests) and My PRs (your open PRs), both grouped by repository.
• Badge count on the activity bar icon, configurable per list.
• Toast notifications when a new PR requests your review — and when one of your own PRs gets approved or receives a changes request — with quick actions (Open, Settings). Anti-spam by design: the first fetch after a reload never fires a storm.
• PR details panel: click a PR to open a GitHub-like page — conversation timeline with rendered mermaid diagrams, merge box (review decision, checks, conflicts, out-of-date branch), reviewers, labels, aggregate diffstat — without leaving VSCode.
• Act on PRs: comment, approve, request changes, merge (with the repo-allowed merge methods), mark your own drafts as ready for review, update an out-of-date branch (rebase or merge commit, GitHub-style selector), and check out the PR branch when the repository is open in the workspace. CI check names link straight to their runs.
• Code review in the editor: expand a PR row to browse its changed files (directory tree or flat list), open real diffs pinned to the PR's commits — no checkout needed, fork PRs included — and review like on GitHub: comments on a line, a selection, or the whole file, batched into a pending review you submit as Comment / Approve / Request changes. Existing review threads show inline with reply and resolve; per-file viewed checkboxes sync with GitHub.
• Row shortcuts: inline icons to check out the PR branch or open it in the browser; right-click to copy the URL or branch name, or mute the repository or its whole organization.
• Muting with search: the "Manage Muted Repositories" command opens a picker that live-searches GitHub as you type — mute/unmute repositories or entire organizations in one click.
• Zero runtime dependencies: native fetch, VSCode's built-in GitHub authentication, GitHub-rendered markdown (bodyHTML). Mermaid diagrams are rendered by a locally bundled copy of mermaid — no CDN, nothing leaves your machine.

Authentication

The extension uses VSCode's GitHub authentication provider with the repo and read:org scopes. repo is required to see PRs in private repositories; read:org is required to show team review requests. You'll be prompted to sign in the first time.

Settings

Reviewing pull requests

A full code review without leaving the editor — and without checking out the branch.

Changed files

Expand a PR row in either view to load its changed files, laid out as a directory tree (single-child folders compacted, like the explorer) or a flat list — switch with View Files as List / Tree in the … menu of the view, or via githubControlCenter.files.layout. Each file shows its change type (added / modified / deleted / renamed) and a diffstat tooltip; the checkbox marks it viewed on GitHub, exactly like the web UI.

Diffs

Click a file to open a native VSCode diff between the PR's base and head commits. Contents come from the GitHub API pinned to the PR's SHAs, so:

• no local checkout is needed, and your working tree is never touched;
• fork PRs work out of the box;
• what you see is exactly the PR's diff, regardless of local state.

Comments

Commenting is only offered on lines that are part of the diff — the same rule GitHub enforces:

• Single line: click the + in the gutter next to a changed or context line.
• Multi-line: select the lines, then click the + on the selection. The selection must stay within one diff hunk.
• Whole file: click the comment icon in the diff editor's title bar (also GitHub Control Center: Comment on File in the command palette). This is also the way to comment binaries and files too large for a text diff.

Each comment widget offers two actions: Add Review Comment batches the comment into your pending review; Add Single Comment posts it immediately (refused while a pending review exists — submit or discard it first).

Pending review

Your first review comment starts a GitHub pending review: draft comments are visible only to you until submitted, and the status bar shows PR #N: k pending while one is open. When you're done:

• Submit Review… (status bar click, or command palette) — choose Comment, Approve, or Request changes; a summary body is required to request changes.
• Discard Pending Review — deletes the draft and all its comments after a confirmation.

Existing threads

Review threads already on the PR appear inline at their anchored lines (both diff sides), with the full conversation: reply from the thread, and resolve or unresolve it from the thread header. Pending comments are labeled, resolved threads start collapsed, and outdated threads (whose anchor line no longer exists in the diff) are skipped — read those on GitHub.

Muting repositories and organizations

Muted entries disappear everywhere at once: both lists, the badge count, and notifications.

Three ways to mute:

• Searchable picker — run GitHub Control Center: Manage Muted Repositories (command palette, or the … menu of either view). It lists your current muted entries (pick one to unmute) and the repositories currently on your radar (pick one to mute). Typing searches GitHub live, and any slash-less text offers a "Mute everything from …" item for the whole organization.
• Right-click a PR row — Mute Repository or Mute Organization.
• Settings — edit githubControlCenter.mutedRepos by hand.

Entry syntax (case-insensitive):

"githubControlCenter.mutedRepos": [
  "acme/noisy-repo",   // mutes one repository
  "some-org",          // mutes the whole organization
  "other-org/*"        // same, alternative spelling
]

Unmuting: the picker (entries are listed first, marked as muted), or remove the entry from Settings.

Install

Grab the .vsix from the latest GitHub Release and:

code --install-extension github-control-center-<version>.vsix

Or build it yourself:

yarn install
yarn dlx @vscode/vsce package --no-dependencies
code --install-extension github-control-center-<version>.vsix

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup.