vscode-git-client

vscode-git-client is a Git workflow extension for VS Code. It keeps daily Git work inside the editor: branch management, commit history, commit details, stashes, worktrees, submodules, gutter markers, merge/rebase/cherry-pick recovery, and branch comparison.

The extension was first inspired by the IntelliJ Git client experience, then adapted for VS Code and extended with workflows that are especially useful in larger repositories: worktree and submodule management, richer branch comparison filters, and cherry-pick matching that can compare commits by author, timestamp, and message instead of relying only on commit ids.

Why Use It

• Keep advanced Git workflows in one VS Code extension instead of switching between several tools.
• Compare branches with commit and file summaries, filters, export, and matching-message detection.
• Inspect commits through a dedicated Commit Details view and open diffs without temporary text documents.
• Manage stashes, worktrees, and submodules from VS Code views.
• Recover from merge, rebase, cherry-pick, and revert conflicts with visible Continue / Skip / Abort actions.
• Use VS Code's native merge and diff editors for the final file-level experience.

Quick Start

1. Open a folder that contains a Git repository.
2. Open the extension's Activity Bar container.
3. Use Branches for branch/tag operations, Git Graph for history, and Commit Details for changed files and diffs.
4. Use VS Code Source Control for regular staging/commit work; the extension adds stash, commit-template, generated-message, amend, and shelve actions there.
5. Use Quick Git Actions from the Command Palette when you know the action but not the view.

Where Things Live

Daily Workflows

Browse And Switch Branches

Open Branches to see local branches, remote branches, tags, and a Recent group. Branches are grouped by prefix such as feature/* and release/*.

Common actions are available from right-click menus and the Branch Action Hub:

• Checkout, create, rename, or delete branches.
• Track or untrack upstream branches.
• Merge a selected branch into the current branch.
• Rebase the current branch onto another branch.
• Reset the current branch to a selected commit with soft, mixed, or hard confirmation.
• Compare a branch with the current branch.
• Open branch or tag commits in Git Graph.
• Add, change, or set remote URLs with immediate update feedback.

Tags appear with branches and support checkout, checkout-new-branch, copy revision, repository-at-revision, compare-with-current, patch preview, and graph navigation actions.

Inspect History And Commit Details

Open Git Graph for a tree-style commit list with refs, author/date metadata, subject-first titles, short hashes, and expandable changed files.

From a commit you can:

• Open Commit Details and immediately inspect changed files.
• Open file diffs against the commit parent.
• Checkout the commit in detached mode.
• Create a branch or tag at that commit.
• Cherry-pick, revert, create a patch, or compare with the current branch.
• Start an interactive rebase from the selected commit.
• Go to a parent or child commit.
• Multi-select commits with Shift, Ctrl, or Cmd; unsupported context-menu actions are disabled.

Commit Details also supports selected-file actions: revert selected changes, cherry-pick selected changes, and create a patch from selected file changes.

Filter Commit History

Use Filter Graph from the Git Graph toolbar to narrow commits by:

• Branch or ref.
• Author.
• Message text.
• Since and until dates.

Filter fields apply as you type or change values. Selecting multiple commits in Filter Graph opens a merged Commit Details range that shows the net file changes across the selection.

Compare Branches

Use Compare Branches when you need to understand what differs between two refs before merging, rebasing, or cherry-picking.

The comparison tab shows both directions (A..B and B..A) with commit and changed-file summaries. It supports:

• File-level diff drill-down.
• Multi-select commits with Shift, Ctrl, or Cmd.
• Cmd/Ctrl+A to select all visible commits in the active pane.
• Esc to clear selection.
• Merged Commit Details for a continuous selected range.
• Fuzzy message, author, exclude-message regex, and from/to date filters.
• Toggle between List (two side-by-side tables) and Graph mode (inline SVG showing how the two branches diverged from their merge base); filters dim non-matching commits in graph mode so topology stays visible.
• Optional filters to ignore merge commits.
• Optional matching-message detection to hide likely cherry-picked commits across branches using author, timestamp, and message.
• Export as two CSV files or one Excel workbook with two sheets.
• Recent compare pairs persisted in workspace state.

Compare A File Or Folder With A Revision

Right-click a file or folder in Explorer and choose Compare with Revision.

• Pick from local branches, remote branches, tags, or a typed commit SHA prefix.
• For a file, the diff opens with the selected revision on the left and the working tree on the right.
• For multiple selected files, the same revision is applied to every selected file and each diff opens.
• For a folder, Commit Details lists changed files and opens the first file in preview diff mode.

Stash And Shelve Work

Open Stashes in the Source Control panel to manage saved work:

• Create a stash with optional untracked files and keep-index mode.
• Apply, pop, drop, rename, preview patch, or unshelve a stash.
• Right-click an unstaged SCM resource and choose the shelve action to stash only that file.

Resolve Conflicts

For merge, rebase, cherry-pick, and revert flows, the extension keeps the operation visible:

• Conflict files open in VS Code merge editors when possible.
• If files cannot be opened directly, the Source Control view is revealed as a fallback.
• Status-bar actions expose Continue, Skip, and Abort when those actions apply.
• Rebase progress is shown when Git exposes the current step.
• Finalize commands guard against unresolved conflicts.

Manage Worktrees

Open Worktrees to manage parallel checkouts from the Activity Bar container.

Worktrees are grouped as Current, Other Worktrees, Locked, and Prunable / Stale.

Available actions include:

• Open a worktree in this window or a new window.
• Reveal in Finder / Explorer.
• Open a terminal in the worktree directory.
• Add a worktree from an existing branch.
• Add a worktree with a new branch.
• Add a detached worktree.
• Lock, unlock, remove, or force remove worktrees.
• Preview and prune stale worktrees.

Manage Submodules

Open Submodules to inspect nested repositories.

Submodules are grouped as Needs Attention, Clean, Uninitialized, and Nested.

Available actions include:

• Init one submodule or all submodules.
• Update one submodule, update all, or update recursively.
• Sync one URL or all URLs.
• Open a submodule in this window or a new window.
• Checkout the recorded commit when the pointer is out of sync.
• Pull the tracked branch.
• Show pointer diff.
• Stage pointer change.
• Deinit a submodule.

Commit From Source Control

The extension adds daily commit helpers to VS Code's native Source Control panel:

• Pick a reusable commit message template.
• Generate a commit message from staged diff with a configurable timeout.
• Amend the last commit from the SCM input box.
• Commit with Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter.
• Stage or unstage files, run partial staging, and fetch/push/pull with previews.

Feature Reference

Gutter Change Markers

Inline gutter decorations show added, modified, and deleted lines relative to HEAD. They update as you type with debounce and can be disabled with vscodeGitClient.gutterMarkers.enabled.

To keep editing responsive on Windows and large repositories, generated folders and files above the configured size or line-count limits are skipped.

Diff And Merge Entry Points

Supported editor workflows include:

• Working tree vs HEAD.
• Index vs HEAD.
• Commit vs parent.
• Any two refs for a file.
• Built-in VS Code 3-way merge editor for conflicts.
• Next and previous conflict navigation.

Cross-Cutting Actions

• Quick Git Actions command palette entry.
• Push and pull previews with incoming/outgoing summaries.
• Fetch --prune.
• Partial staging with git add -p.
• File history and blame from the active editor file or Explorer context menu.
• Guardrails for destructive operations.
• Output-channel logging for slow Git commands.
• Deterministic refresh after mutating operations.

Settings

Existing intelliGit.* settings are still read as a legacy fallback when the matching vscodeGitClient.* setting has not been configured.

Default commit message templates:

[
  { "label": "feat", "template": "feat({scope}): {cursor}" },
  { "label": "fix", "template": "fix({scope}): {cursor}" },
  { "label": "chore", "template": "chore: {cursor}" },
  { "label": "ticket", "template": "[{ticket}] {cursor}" }
]

Performance Notes

The extension activates lazily when one of its views or commands is used. Refreshes are scoped to the visible surface where possible. VS Code Git repository-state events and save events refresh working-tree state without reloading every branch, tag, stash, worktree, submodule, and graph slice.

On Windows, Git command execution uses lower concurrency than macOS/Linux to reduce CreateProcess pressure on the Extension Host. Additional mitigations include configurable refresh debounce settings, parallel operation-state detection, cached gutter configuration, and save debounce.

If a workspace still feels slow, enable vscodeGitClient.performance.logGitCommands and inspect the extension output channel for slow Git operations. Adding the repository folder and .git directory to Windows Defender exclusions usually has the largest practical impact.

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Compile:

npm run compile

Open this folder in VS Code and press F5 to launch the extension host.

Architecture Map

Command ID Reference

Key command IDs, not exhaustive:

• vscodeGitClient.quickActions - Quick Git Actions palette
• vscodeGitClient.refresh - Refresh all views
• vscodeGitClient.branch.* - Checkout, create, rename, delete, track, merge, rebase, reset, compare, search, actionHub, openCommits
• vscodeGitClient.tag.* - Checkout, checkoutNewBranch, copyRevisionNumber, showRepositoryAtRevision, compareWithCurrent, createPatch, openCommits
• vscodeGitClient.stash.* - Create, apply, pop, drop, rename, previewPatch, unshelve
• vscodeGitClient.graph.* - openDetails, openFileDiff, checkoutCommit, createBranchHere, createTagHere, cherryPick, cherryPickRange, revert, rebaseInteractiveFromHere, compareWithCurrent, createPatch, showRepositoryAtRevision, openRepositoryFileAtRevision, goToParentCommit, filter, clearFilter
• vscodeGitClient.commit.* - revertSelectedChanges, cherryPickSelectedChanges, amend
• vscodeGitClient.compare.open - Open branch comparison
• vscodeGitClient.compareWithRevision - Compare Explorer files or folders with a revision
• vscodeGitClient.merge.* - openConflict, next, previous, finalize
• vscodeGitClient.operation.* - abort, continue, skip
• vscodeGitClient.git.* - pushWithPreview, pullWithPreview, fetchPrune
• vscodeGitClient.stage.* / vscodeGitClient.unstage.file - stage and unstage actions
• vscodeGitClient.scm.* - shelveResource, commitTemplate, generateCommitMessage, amendFromInput
• vscodeGitClient.worktree.* - worktree actions
• vscodeGitClient.submodule.* - submodule actions
• vscodeGitClient.fileBlame.open - File blame

Legacy intelliGit.* command aliases are registered after activation so existing keybindings and integrations keep working during migration.

Current Boundaries

• Single repository per window, using the first workspace folder.
• Native Git CLI required on the system path, or configure vscodeGitClient.gitPath.
• Built-in VS Code merge and diff editors are used for reliability.
• Git Graph is tree-based rendering with glyph hints, not a custom canvas DAG.
• AI commit message generation requires a compatible language model provider and times out gracefully if unavailable.
• PR and issue tracker integrations are intentionally outside the current scope.

Feedback And Contributions

Issues and pull requests are welcome: https://github.com/thanhtunguet/vscode-git-client/issues