GitHub Desktop Plus
GitHub Desktop's workflow inside VS Code: staged and unstaged changes side by
side, a commit box, branch and sync controls, a visual history, conflict handling
and multiple GitHub accounts.
A fork of vscode-github-desktop
This extension continues
vscode-github-desktop by
Satyam Lohiya, published on the Marketplace as GitHub Desktop, and is
maintained here as GitHub Desktop Plus. It is a separate extension with its
own id, so it installs alongside the original.
On top of the original it adds:
- per-repository GitHub accounts, including the identity commits are authored as
- a per-repository comparison branch, independent of git's upstream
- expanding a commit in History to the files it touched
- drafting a commit message from the diff through a CLI
- a rebrand (name, icon, command prefix) so both extensions can coexist
Screenshots
Changes and the commit box
History, with a commit expanded
Choosing the account a repository commits as
Features
Changes and commits
- Staged and unstaged sections, one row per file per side, with per-file stage,
unstage and discard; a file that is staged and then edited again appears in both
- Commit box with summary, description, co-authors, Amend and the number of files
it will commit. Anything staged is committed from the index; with nothing
staged, the ticked files are committed together
- The message, description, co-authors and ticked files are kept per repository,
so a draft survives hiding the view, reloading the window or switching
repository
- Generate a conventional-commit message from the diff with a command of your
choice, such as an agent CLI
- Undo the last commit (leaving its changes staged), amend it, or force-push after
rewriting history
- A merge, cherry-pick, revert or rebase stopped in conflict is shown in the
panel, where files can be marked resolved and the operation continued or aborted
- The panel refreshes on save, on focus, and every 30 seconds while visible, so
changes made in a terminal appear without reopening the view
- The activity-bar icon badges how many files have uncommitted changes
History
- Commit list with author avatars, relative times, tag badges and unpushed markers
- Expand a commit to see the files it touched with per-file line counts, or open
all of them in VS Code's own changes editor
- Right-click a commit to reset, check out, revert, cherry-pick, create a branch
or a tag, copy its SHA, or open it on GitHub
- Diffs render in the panel's own pane, and fall back to VS Code's diff editor
when the panel is too narrow to show one.
githubDesktopPlus.diff.view decides
that: panel keeps them in the pane, editor sends every diff to VS Code
Branches, sync and pull requests
- Branch menu grouped into default, recent and other, with last-commit activity
- Create, switch and merge branches, and compare one branch against another
- Per-repository base branch: compare against
develop even when the branch
tracks prod. Sync state and pull-request links follow it, while push and pull
keep using git's own upstream
- Fetch, pull, push, publish and force-push, with ahead/behind counters
- Open pull requests for the branch are listed and can be checked out locally
- Stash the working tree, or have it stashed when switching to another branch, and
apply or drop stashes from the list
Accounts
- Several GitHub accounts at once, signed in through VS Code's browser flow, the
GitHub CLI (every account
gh knows about is imported), a personal access
token, or GitHub Enterprise Server
- Tokens are stored in VS Code's Secret Storage
- Pin a repository to an account from the Repositories tree, the Accounts tree or
the avatar beside the commit summary. Unassigned repositories follow the active
account, and a pin whose account has been signed out falls back to it
- The selected account is also the commit identity: commits, amends, cherry-picks,
reverts, merges, conflict continuations, pulls and annotated tags run with that
account's name and email — its public profile address, or GitHub's
<id>+<login>@users.noreply.github.com no-reply address — rather than the
machine's global git config. Nothing is written to .git/config
Repositories
- Repositories are detected from the workspace; others can be cloned or added by
path
- Switching repository keeps the current VS Code window and is remembered for the
session
- Create an issue, or open the repository, a commit or a pull request on GitHub
Installation
Install GitHub Desktop Plus from the VS Code Marketplace, or from a .vsix:
code --install-extension github-desktop-plus-<version>.vsix
Getting started
- Open the extension in the activity bar and choose Sign In, or run
GitHub Desktop Plus: Sign In from the Command Palette.
- Pick a sign-in method: VS Code's browser flow (recommended), the GitHub CLI, a
personal access token, or a GitHub Enterprise Server URL.
- Open any Git repository in your workspace — it is detected automatically. Use
the Repositories view, or
Clone Repository, for anything else.
- Stage files, write a message and commit. Branch, sync and history controls sit
in the same panel.
If you sign in with a personal access token, it needs the repo, read:org and
user:email scopes.
Commands
All commands are available from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P):
| Command |
Purpose |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Sign In |
Add a GitHub account |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Sign Out |
Remove an account |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Manage GitHub Accounts |
List, switch and remove accounts |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Switch Active Account |
Change the account unassigned repositories use |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Clone Repository |
Clone with an account and progress reporting |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Open Repository |
Switch the tracked repository |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Select Account for Repository |
Pin one repository to an account |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Use Account for Current Repository |
Apply an account to the repository you are working on |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Select Base Branch for Repository |
Choose the branch to compare against |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Create Issue |
Open a new issue for the repository |
GitHub Desktop Plus: Refresh Views |
Re-read the repositories and their state |
The Accounts and Repositories views also offer these as context-menu entries.
Settings
The Settings UI groups these into categories — GitHub Desktop Plus, Git,
Diff, History, Interface and Confirmations — matching the order
below.
| Setting |
Default |
Purpose |
githubDesktopPlus.commitMessageCommand |
omp |
Command behind the Generate button. It receives the diff on stdin and prints the message on stdout |
githubDesktopPlus.commitMessageArgs |
["-p", "--model", "commit"] |
Arguments passed to that command, before the built-in prompt |
githubDesktopPlus.git.path |
"" |
Executable used for every git command. Empty uses the git on PATH |
githubDesktopPlus.git.defaultRemote |
origin |
Remote used by operations that name one: publishing, pushing a branch for the first time, force-push, tag push, checking out a pull request, and reading a repository's metadata |
githubDesktopPlus.diff.view |
auto |
Where diffs are shown. auto uses the panel's own pane when there is room and VS Code's diff editor otherwise; panel always uses the pane; editor never does — a changed file, a commit or a file inside a commit opens in VS Code's diff editor |
githubDesktopPlus.diff.contextLines |
3 |
Lines of unchanged context around each hunk, in working-tree and commit diffs. 0 shows only the changed lines |
githubDesktopPlus.stash.includeUntracked |
true |
Save untracked files with the stash instead of leaving them in the working tree |
githubDesktopPlus.history.pageSize |
50 |
Commits per page in the History list, for the first page and every load more |
githubDesktopPlus.history.dateFormat |
relative |
relative shows "3 days ago", absolute shows the recorded time, e.g. 2026-10-12 14:26 |
githubDesktopPlus.autoRefreshInterval |
30 |
Seconds between refreshes of the History panel while it is visible; 0 disables periodic refreshes |
githubDesktopPlus.ui.avatars |
github |
github loads avatar images from GitHub; none shows theme icons and initials instead and makes no avatar requests |
githubDesktopPlus.ui.activityBarBadge |
true |
Show the number of pending changes on the activity-bar icon |
githubDesktopPlus.confirm.destructiveActions |
true |
Ask before discarding changes, undoing a commit, amending a pushed commit, resetting, force-pushing, dropping a stash or merging into the default branch. false performs them immediately |
Requirements
- VS Code 1.84.0 or newer
- Git installed and available on
PATH, or set githubDesktopPlus.git.path to
its absolute location
- A GitHub account for the GitHub-specific features; local git operations work
without one
Security and privacy
- GitHub tokens are stored with VS Code's Secret Storage (the OS keychain), never
in
settings.json or .git/config
- Credentials for network operations are passed per git invocation as an ephemeral
http.extraheader; repository configuration is left untouched
- Everything runs locally. The extension collects no telemetry and sends nothing
anywhere except the GitHub API calls its features require — setting
githubDesktopPlus.ui.avatars to none removes the avatar lookups entirely
- Commands run through
execFile with argument arrays rather than a shell
Issues and contributions
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome in
the repository.
License
MIT. Copyright (c) 2025 Satyam Lohiya, author of the original
vscode-github-desktop, and (c) 2026 Piotr Roszkowski for the changes in this
fork. Both notices are retained in LICENSE.
| |
