Git Glance

Super lightweight, clean, and fun inline Git blame for Visual Studio Code.

💡 Why Git Glance?

Full-fledged Git extensions are feature-packed, but they can often feel heavy, clutter your editor, or slow down file navigation.

Git Glance was crafted for developers who only want the essential information directly in their flow:

• Who wrote this line of code?
• What was the commit message?
• When was it committed?

No bloat, no complex menus, and zero background clutter. Just a clean, modern, and fun glance at your code's history.

🏎️ Comparison: Git Glance vs. Heavy Git Suites

✨ Features

• ⚡ Blazing Fast & Ultra-Lightweight: Bundled with esbuild into a single ~42 KB file with zero runtime dependencies.
• ⚡ Instant 0ms Lookups & Zero-Debounce: Files are blamed once per edit and cached in memory, resolving cursor movements in 0ms with zero spawned Git subprocesses.
• 🛡️ Process Cancellation & Zero DOM Churn: Automatically aborts obsolete in-flight Git processes on fast cursor navigation and reuses persistent decoration types to eliminate Monaco stylesheet churn.
• 🔋 Battery-Friendly Typing: The line you are typing on shows You, just now: Uncommitted changes without running Git at all.
• 🧹 Skips Formatting Commits: Honors .git-blame-ignore-revs, so bulk reformatting commits don't hide the real author.
• 👀 Subdued Inline Annotation: Appears gracefully at the end of the active cursor line with subtle, theme-adaptive coloring.
• ✨ Uncommitted Line Detection: Detects uncommitted and newly added lines seamlessly (You, 3 hours ago: Uncommitted changes).
• 💬 Rich Interactive Hover Card: Hovering over the annotation displays an elegant card with:
  • Author name, email, and exact commit timestamp.
  • Short commit SHA.
  • Formatted commit subject and multi-line body.
  • Quick action buttons: Copy Hash, View Details, and Open on Web (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket Cloud/Server, Azure DevOps, Codeberg, and more).
• 🎨 Theme-Adaptive: Automatically blends with your favorite VS Code light and dark color themes.
• 🛠️ Fully Configurable: Personalize prefix emojis, text templates, date formats, and debounce speed.

📸 Visual Preview

Default Inline Style (with Profile Picture / Avatar):

const authService = new AuthService();  (avatar) You, 3 days ago: Add JWT middleware
const dbService = new DbService();      (avatar) Linus Torvalds, 3 days ago: Add connection pool
const session = authService.init();    You, 3 hours ago: Uncommitted changes

Smart Author Recognition: Git Glance automatically detects if you authored the commit using your configured Git email (git config user.email) and displays You instead of your name, while keeping your avatar badge intact!

Available Visual Presets (gitGlance.preset):

Interactive Hover Card:

### Git Glance

👤 Author: Wahyu Ridiansyah <wahyu@example.com>
📅 Date: 3 days ago (25/09/2026 14:10)
🔖 Commit: 7a8f3b2

> Add JWT middleware

---

[📋 Copy Hash] • [🔍 Details] • [🌐 Open in Browser]

⌨️ Available Commands

Access these commands anytime from the VS Code Command Palette (Cmd + Shift + P on macOS, Ctrl + Shift + P on Windows/Linux):

⚙️ Configuration & Customization

Open VS Code Settings (Cmd + , or Ctrl + ,) and search for Git Glance:

Custom Format Tokens (gitGlance.format):

When gitGlance.preset is set to "custom", you can freely compose your own line format with these tokens:

For uncommitted lines (gitGlance.uncommittedFormat), ${author}, ${message}, ${prefix}, ${time}, ${date}, and ${isoDate} are supported.

Hover Date Format Tokens (gitGlance.hoverDateFormat):

Customize the exact timestamp displayed in the hover card tooltip using these tokens:

🩺 Troubleshooting

Nothing shows on the current line? Run Git Glance: Show Log. It lists the git executable in use and any error from git.

• git not found: Git Glance uses the same git as VS Code. Install git, or set git.path in your settings.
• "dubious ownership" in the log: run git config --global --add safe.directory <repo path>.
• Initials instead of a teammate's photo: the log says why. (no GitHub token) → run Git Glance: Sign in to GitHub for Avatars, or clone over HTTPS so git stores a token. no account linked to this commit's email → the teammate has to add that email to their GitHub account (Settings → Emails).

🔒 Privacy

Git Glance has no telemetry and needs no account. Blame data never leaves your machine.

With gitGlance.avatarSource set to "remote" (the default), author photos are looked up in the background:

• GitHub noreply emails (123+user@users.noreply.github.com): the photo is downloaded from github.com/<user>.png.
• GitHub and GitHub Enterprise: the GitHub API is asked for the repository's recent commit authors, then for the blamed commit (repository name and commit SHA are sent). Private repositories need a token. Git Glance uses, without asking: your GitHub sign-in in VS Code, or the token git already uses for HTTPS (git credential fill with prompts disabled; the token is only sent to that same GitHub host). If neither exists, Git Glance offers to sign in and shows initials until then.
• GitLab: the GitLab instance is asked for the photo of the account with the author's email.
• Bitbucket Cloud, Gitea, Forgejo, Codeberg: the host's API is asked which account made the commit (public repositories only).
• Gravatar: the MD5 hash of the author's email is sent.

Set gitGlance.avatarSource to "initials" to make no network requests, or turn avatars off with gitGlance.showAvatar.

🚀 Installation

Option 1: Install from VS Code Marketplace (Recommended)

Install directly from the Visual Studio Marketplace or from within VS Code:

1. Open the Extensions view in VS Code (Cmd + Shift + X on macOS, Ctrl + Shift + X on Windows/Linux).
2. Search for Git Glance.
3. Click Install.

Or install directly via CLI:

code --install-extension ridiansyah.git-glance

Option 2: Install from VSIX (Local Release)

Download the latest git-glance-x.x.x.vsix from GitHub Releases or build it locally, then:

code --install-extension git-glance-1.4.0.vsix

Or via VS Code UI: Extensions view (Cmd+Shift+X) ➔ ... menu at top right ➔ Install from VSIX... ➔ Select the .vsix file.

Option 3: Build & Run from Source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/ridiansyah/git-glance.git
   cd git-glance
   

2. Install dependencies:

   pnpm install
   

3. Open in VS Code and press F5 (or run Launch Git Glance in the Run & Debug view). A new Extension Development Host window will launch with Git Glance active!

🛠️ Development & Contributing

Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are very welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide to get started.

Development Scripts:

# Compile bundle with esbuild
pnpm run compile

# Watch mode for rapid local iteration
pnpm run watch

# Run TypeScript type check
pnpm run lint

# Run built-in unit tests
pnpm test

# Package into a release .vsix file
pnpm run package:vsix

Community & Standards:

• Contributing Guide — How to propose changes and submit PRs.
• Changelog — Full release history.
• Code of Conduct — Our community guidelines.
• Security Policy — How to report security vulnerabilities.
• Agent & Architectural Standards — Technical guidelines and conventions.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. Made with ❤️ for a cleaner, faster coding experience.