Sidemark – MRSF Review Comments for VS Code

Add, manage, and navigate Markdown Review Sidecar Format (MRSF) comments directly inside Visual Studio Code — without touching your Markdown source files.

Features

Gutter icons & inline highlights

Every commented line gets a color-coded gutter icon (open 💬, resolved ✅, orphaned ⚠️, multiple comments). Inline/column-span comments are highlighted directly in the editor text.

Rich hover cards

Hover over any commented line to see the full comment thread with author, timestamp, badges, and one-click action links:

Resolve / Unresolve — toggle comment state without leaving the editor
Reply — add a threaded reply
Delete — remove the comment

A dedicated Sidemark activity-bar panel lists all comments for the active Markdown file:

Sort by line number or date
Toggle resolved comments visibility
Navigate to any comment with a single click
Reanchor all comments from the sidebar
Add new comments directly

Automatic reanchoring on save

When you save a Markdown file, Sidemark silently reanchors all comments using the MRSF multi-step resolution algorithm (exact text → fuzzy match → line fallback). High-confidence results are applied automatically; uncertain results are flagged for manual review.

Interactive reanchor review

Run Sidemark: Reanchor Comments from the command palette for a guided review session. Each uncertain result is shown with old/new anchor decorations and accept/reject/skip controls.

Anchor drift detection

When you insert or delete lines, the status bar warns you that comment anchors may have drifted. Saving the file clears the warning after reanchor runs.

Staleness warnings

If any comments reference a different git commit than HEAD, the status bar shows an orange warning with the count of stale comments. Click it to reanchor.

Getting Started

Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace (or install the .vsix manually).
Open a Markdown file that has a co-located .review.yaml sidecar — or create one:
- Right-click a line → Sidemark: Add Line Comment
- Select text → Sidemark: Add Comment on Selection
View comments in the Sidemark sidebar, or hover over commented lines.

Tip: The first time you add a comment, Sidemark will ask for your author name. It's saved globally so you only enter it once.

Commands

Command	Description
`Sidemark: Add Line Comment`	Add a comment on the current line
`Sidemark: Add Comment on Selection`	Add an inline comment on the selected text
`Sidemark: Reply to Comment`	Reply to an existing comment
`Sidemark: Resolve Comment`	Resolve a comment (with optional cascade)
`Sidemark: Unresolve Comment`	Unresolve a previously resolved comment
`Sidemark: Delete Comment`	Delete a comment
`Sidemark: Reanchor Comments`	Run interactive reanchor for uncertain results
`Sidemark: Go to Comment`	Navigate to a comment's anchor position
`Sidemark: Refresh Comments`	Reload the sidecar from disk

All commands are also available from the editor context menu (right-click) on Markdown files.

Settings

All settings are under the Sidemark section in VS Code Settings.

Setting	Type	Default	Description
`sidemark.author`	`string`	`""`	Default author name for new comments
`sidemark.showResolved`	`boolean`	`true`	Show resolved comments in decorations and sidebar
`sidemark.gutterIcons`	`boolean`	`true`	Show gutter icons for commented lines
`sidemark.inlineHighlights`	`boolean`	`true`	Show inline background highlights for text-specific comments
`sidemark.reanchorOnSave`	`boolean`	`true`	Automatically reanchor comments when a Markdown file is saved
`sidemark.reanchorThreshold`	`number`	`0.6`	Fuzzy match threshold for reanchoring (0.0–1.0)
`sidemark.reanchorAutoAcceptScore`	`number`	`1.0`	Auto-accept reanchor results at or above this confidence score

How It Works

Sidemark stores review comments in sidecar files alongside your Markdown documents, following the MRSF v1.0 specification:

docs/
  architecture.md                    ← your document
  architecture.md.review.yaml       ← sidecar with comments

Comments are anchored to specific lines or text ranges using line, end_line, start_column, end_column, and selected_text. When the document is edited, the reanchor algorithm relocates comments using exact text matching, fuzzy matching, and positional fallback.

Sidecar format

mrsf_version: "1.0"
document: docs/architecture.md
comments:
  - id: 1d3c72b0
    author: Alice (alice)
    timestamp: "2026-03-02T18:22:59Z"
    text: "This section needs clarification."
    resolved: false
    line: 9
    selected_text: "The gateway component routes all inbound traffic."
    commit: 02eb613

See the specification for the full schema, including threading (reply_to), types, severity levels, and extension fields (x_*).

Alternate Sidecar Location

Place a .mrsf.yaml at your repository root to store sidecars in a central directory:

sidecar_root: .reviews

With this config, the sidecar for docs/architecture.md is resolved as .reviews/docs/architecture.md.review.yaml.

CLI Companion

The @mrsf/cli package provides command-line access to the same functionality — validate, add, resolve, reanchor, and list comments from the terminal or CI/CD pipelines:

npx @mrsf/cli validate --strict
npx @mrsf/cli reanchor --staged
npx @mrsf/cli list --open

Requirements

VS Code 1.85 or later
Git (optional — enables commit-based staleness detection and diff-based reanchoring)

Sidemark – MRSF Review Comments

Wictor Wilén