Line History

The VS Code Timeline experience, but for a single source line instead of the whole file. Same Explorer view, same native commit hover, same multi-diff — scoped to the line under your cursor and its git log -L history. The goal is explicitly to look and feel like Timeline as much as possible, just per-line.

What it does

• Explorer view "Line History" follows the cursor and lists every commit that touched the current line (git log -L). Newest first.
• Commit hover is the real VS Code hover widget — the same one Timeline uses (TreeItem.tooltip, resolved lazily via resolveTreeItem), with the same content as git's commit hover: gravatar + author (mailto), co-authors, relative + absolute date, message, shortstat, and a $(git-commit) <sha> (copy) · Open Commit · Open on GitHub command row (the GitHub link only when the repo has a github.com remote).
• Click a row → that revision's diff, scrolled to the line.
• Inline "Open Commit" (hover a row) → the whole commit as a native multi-file diff.
• Title "Open Full Line History" → a native multi-diff with only the tracked line's hunk per commit (everything else collapses away), stopping at the commit that introduced the line.
• Command Palette: Line History: Show for Current Line → quick-pick of the revisions, as a secondary surface.

The cursor's buffer line (including unsaved edits) is mapped to the corresponding HEAD line before querying git, so it stays correct on a dirty buffer.

Backed entirely by git + the built-in vscode.git API (toGitUri). Pure JS, zero dependencies, no build step.

Relation to Timeline

VS Code's built-in Timeline shows the commit history of the whole file. This shows the commit history of one line — the same view location, the same hover widget, the same multi-diff UI, deliberately mirrored so it feels native. Where Timeline answers "what happened to this file", Line History answers "what happened to this line". Nothing more — deliberately small.

Note: a contributed tree view cannot right-align the timestamp the way Timeline does (microsoft/vscode#107183, open since 2020). The time is shown inline-dimmed after the author instead.

Settings

• lineHistory.maxRevisions — max revisions listed per line (default 10).

Development

Pure JS — no build. Press F5 ("Run Extension") to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension loaded; edit extension.js and restart the host to iterate. See RELEASING.md for packaging.

License

MIT © Thimo Jansen