GitDiff

Diff your working tree against any branch or commit — and keep editing.

Why GitDiff?

VS Code's built-in Git diff compares against HEAD or the index. It does not let you ask:

"How does this file in my working tree look compared to origin/main? Or to that commit from last Tuesday?"

GitDiff does exactly that — and unlike a read-only git diff, the working-tree side stays live and editable. You can read the comparison and fix the code in the same view, then hit save.

Features

• Compare against any branch — local or remote-tracking, with a quick-pick search.
• Compare against any commit — recent commits in a picker, plus a free-form "Enter SHA…" option.
• Editable right pane — it's the real file on disk. Edit and save like any normal editor.
• Read-only left pane — backed by git show <ref>:<path>, so you can't accidentally clobber history.
• Current-line blame — the line your cursor is on shows a dim end-of-line annotation (author, date, commit subject) in any file in a git repo and in GitDiff's diff panes. Toggle with gitdiff.lineBlame.enabled.
• Blame on hover — hover a line to see the last commit that touched it (author, date, commit subject, short SHA), plus a link to open that commit's diff for the file in the editor and, when a remote is configured, links to view the commit on the web and its pull/merge request (resolved from the commit subject — no token or API call). The working-tree side blames your live contents, so it stays accurate as you edit; uncommitted lines show a clean "Not committed yet".
• Changed-Files sidebar — pick a target once, see every file in your tree that differs from it, click to open the diff.
• Active-file highlight — the file shown in the focused diff is highlighted in the sidebar list (and scrolled into view), so you always know where you are while clicking through changes.
• Revert a file to the target — hover a row in the sidebar and click the ↺ button (aligned right) to discard that file's working-tree changes and restore it to its state at the comparison branch/commit. Working-tree additions are removed; files deleted from your tree are recreated. A confirmation prompt guards the discard.
• Search + path filters in the sidebar — narrow the changed-files list with a content search (match case / whole word / regex toggles, mirroring VS Code Search) plus comma-separated files to include / files to exclude glob inputs.
• Live branch tracking — when comparing against a branch, "Refresh" re-resolves it to the current tip.
• Repo-aware — works correctly with multi-root workspaces, nested repos, and reserved characters in branch names.
• Safe by default — refuses to diff binary or non-UTF-8 blobs, declares no virtual-workspace support, and the git binary path is machine-scoped (workspace settings can't override it).

Install

From the Marketplace

ext install tigercosmos.gitdiff

From a .vsix

code --install-extension gitdiff-0.6.0.vsix

Usage

Compare a single file

1. Open any file from your workspace.
2. Run one of:
   • GitDiff: Compare with Branch…
   • GitDiff: Compare with Commit…
3. Pick a target. The diff opens with the target on the left (read-only) and your working-tree file on the right (editable).

You can also right-click a file in the Explorer or on the editor tab to launch either command.

Hover over any line in the diff to see the last commit that touched it — author, date, commit subject, and short SHA.

Browse every changed file

1. Click the GitDiff icon in the Activity Bar.
2. Hit Set Comparison Target… in the view's title.
3. Click any file in the list to open its diff against your chosen target.
4. Narrow the list with the Search box (toggle match-case / whole-word / regex on the right) and the files to include / files to exclude glob inputs — same comma-separated syntax as VS Code's Search panel (*.ts, src/, **/*.test.ts, *.{ts,tsx}). Filter state is remembered per workspace.
5. Hover a row and click the ↺ Revert button on the right to discard that file's changes and restore it to the target (a confirmation prompt guards the discard).
6. Use the Clear Comparison Target button ($(clear-all)) in the view's title to drop the target and close every open GitDiff diff in one click.

Editor title actions

When a GitDiff diff is the active editor:

Commands

Configuration

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85 or newer.
• A local git binary on PATH (or set gitdiff.gitPath).
• A real file: workspace. Virtual workspaces (vscode.dev, browser-based Codespaces, Remote – Repositories) are not supported.

How it works

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  extension.ts        — activation, command + provider wiring │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  GitService          — shells out to `git` via execFile      │
│  RefPicker           — QuickPick UI for branches and commits │
│  DiffOpener          — builds URIs and calls vscode.diff     │
│  GitShowProvider     — TextDocumentContentProvider (left)    │
│  BlameHoverProvider  — per-line blame hover on both panes    │
│  ChangedFilesProvider — WebviewView for the sidebar          │
│  ActiveDiffTracker   — maintains the activeDiff context key  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The left pane is a virtual document with the gitdiff: scheme:

gitdiff:/<repo-relative-path>?ref=<full-sha>&repo=<absolute-repo-root>[&branch=<branch>]

The ref is pinned to a verified 40-char SHA at open time (so the left pane is reproducible), the repo root is encoded explicitly (so multi-root and nested-repo workspaces resolve correctly), and the file path stays in the URI's path (so language detection just works). When you compare against a branch, the original branch name is preserved in branch= so Refresh can re-resolve it to the current tip; diffs opened against a specific commit omit branch= and stay pinned. All three values round-trip through URLSearchParams, so /, ?, #, &, %, spaces, and non-ASCII characters survive intact. The right pane is the unmodified file: URI for the workspace file — that's why edit and save behave normally.

Development

npm install
npm run compile      # tsc
npm run watch        # incremental build
npm test             # integration tests (VS Code test host)
npm run test:unit    # unit tests (mocha + ts-node)
npm run package      # build a .vsix

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension loaded.

License

MIT