Customizable Git explorer.

This is a free, feature-oriented and maintained alternative to Git Graph by mhutchie. More details at the bottom of this Readme.

Also available as a "view" with option "git-log--graph.position": "view"

You can install the extension in VSCode from HERE or for VSCodium from Open VSX Registry.

Then run the command: git log --graph: Open graph view or just click the Git Log action menu in the bottom status bar. That's all you need to know really, everything below is subordinate.

When you click on the Merge button for example, a window like this opens:

This allows you to set params and modify the command before executing, both via option toggling and direct editing. To keep the state saved for next time, you can click Save.

All Git actions (blue buttons) work like that. Even the main git log action itself is a modifiable field: By default it holds

log --graph --oneline --pretty={EXT_FORMAT} -n 15000 --skip=0 --all {STASH_REFS} --invert-grep --grep=\"^untracked files on \" --grep=\"^index on \""

You shouldn't edit the --pretty argument of course, but if you for example want to view the log of a subfolder or for a specific file, all you need to do is add -- subfolder to the end of the command.

Please be careful editing any of the input fields or config, as they are all passed to your command line AS IS, that is, without escaping. For example, if you change the above merge command to merge '$1' --no-commi (typo, t missing at the end), this will still be executed and result in a Git error. If you change it to status; reboot, your computer will attempt to shut down, so probably don't do that.

All OS Linux/Mac/Windows are supported.

Notable features:

• Default actions: fetch, stash, pop, fetch, merge/abort, cherry-pick/abort, checkout, create, revert, apply, rename, delete, rebase. Extendable with more commands, see Customization below.
• Sticky header
• List of branches at the top; click on any branch to jump to its tip. It always shows all known branches visible in the current viewport. This means that the list of branches updates when you scroll, but you can also display all at once.
• Drag/drop branch tips on top of each other to merge etc.
• Right click context menus
• Quick jump search and filtering 🔍 (also via Ctrl+f)
• Changed files can be clicked and open up diff view in new tab
• By default, 15,000 commits are loaded and displayed at once (see log cmd) and rendered efficiently inside a virtual scroller. Because of this, you can quickly scroll over thousands of commits without slowing down or performance issues.
• Show stashes
• Green/red insertions/deletion stats
• Select multiple commits with Ctrl or Shift to compare or apply bulk actions (cherry-pick, revert)

All blue buttons are completely customizable; you can add as many actions as you like. You don't have to customize it though, the defaults should be fine for most use cases.

Let's say you wanted to add a git switch action button, with convenience checkboxes for --detach and / or --force. There are five kinds of actions:

1. global: top icons
2. commit: right box or context menu of single commit
3. commits: right box for multiple selected commits
4. branch: right box if branch present or context menu
5. stash right box if stash present or context menu
6. tag right box if tag present or context menu
7. branch-drop for when you've dragged one branch tip on top of another

switch works with branches, so it should be a branch action.

The only required parameters per action are title and args.

// VSCode settings.json
"git-log--graph.actions.branch": [
    // You'll be extending the default actions here with your custom additions:
    {
        "title": "Switch", // Whatever you want to appear on the button itself. Title is also used as a cache key (see `Save` above).
        "icon": "arrow-swap", // An icon to display next to the title. Choose one from https://microsoft.github.io/vscode-codicons/dist/codicon.html
        "args": "switch '$1'", // The actual command, appended to `git `. This will be executed WITHOUT VALIDATION SO BE CAREFUL. $1, $2 and so on are placeholders for the respective `params`.
        "params": [ "{LOCAL_BRANCH_NAME}" ], // Default values for the `args` placeholders. You can write anything here, including special keywords that include: {BRANCH_NAME}, {LOCAL_BRANCH_NAME}, {REMOTE_NAME}, {COMMIT_HASH}, {COMMIT_HASHES}, {STASH_NAME}, {TAG_NAME}, {SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME} and {TARGET_BRANCH_NAME} (where it makes sense).
        // `options` are just an easy and quick way to toggle common trailing options. You can also specify them manually in `args` of course, given that `args` is also editable yet again at runtime.
        "options": [
            { "value": "--detach", "default_active": false },
            { "value": "--force", "default_active": false },
        ],
        "description": "Some button tooltip text",
        "immediate": false, // if true, the command executes without another user interaction step and closes again, except on error.
        "ignore_errors": false // can rarely be useful in combination with `immediate`
    }
]

This is what you'll get:

Please consider opening an issue or PR if you think a certain action or option warrants a place in the defaults.

// VSCode settings.json
{
    "git-log--graph.position": {
        "description": "Decide how/where the extension should appear. Changing this option REQUIRES RELOAD.",
        "type": "string",
        "default": "editor",
        "enum": [
            "editor",
            "view"
        ],
        "enumDescriptions": [
            "As a regular editor tab, so it will be treated like one of your open files",
            "As a view in the Source Control side nav section. You will also be able to drag it to any other place in the interface."
        ]
    },
    "git-log--graph.hide-quick-branch-tips": {
        "description": "If active, the area at the top with the dotted branch lines and git status will not be shown anymore.",
        "type": "boolean",
        "default": false
    },
    "git-log--graph.disable-scroll-snapping": {
        "description": "If active, the mouse wheel event on the scroller will not be caught and instead behave normally. This comes at the expense of the dotted connection lines at the top being offset wrongly more often.",
        "type": "boolean",
        "default": false
    },
    "git-log--graph.branch-width": {
        "description": "The width of the individual branch lines, including both line and right spacing. The default 'auto' chooses between 10 and 2 depending on the size of the repository.",
        "type": [
            "integer",
            "string"
        ],
        "default": "auto"
    },
    "git-log--graph.folder": {
        "description": "Use this to overwrite the desired *absolute* path in which a .git folder is located. You usually don't need to do this as folder selection is available from the interface.",
        "type": "string"
    },
    "git-log--graph.branch-visualization": {
        "description": "How the branch lines displayed. SVG is recommended.",
        "type": "string",
        "default": "svg",
        "enum": [
            "svg",
            "ascii"
        ]
    },
    "git-log--graph.verbose-logging": {
        "type": "boolean",
        "default": false
    }
}

Entries usually sorted by importance.

• 588832e Light theme support (#13, PR #14) thanks to @lens0021
• 5d60bc8 Higher res logo
• d7b4d7e git push option --set-upstream default TRUE
• 901b2cf Log errors also into the dedicated output channel
• fa7b557 Fix pull/push on local branches, even if they don't have a remote configured yet. The most likely remote will be prefilled: remote name, tracking remote name or default remote.
• 1940cfa Color subject text of merge commits grey
• 112a67f Focus scroller on startup so immediate keyboard scrolling is possible

• c529816 Fix file diff views (#12)
• 656bb08 Fix context menus on branches on top of commit
• 7d2e568 Context menu (right click): run action on left mouse UP event, not just click (down+up), to align with how context menus typically work basically everywhere
• 75f7c66 Increase external change delay margin from 1500 ms to 4500 ms to hopefully stop unnecessary duplicate reloads from occurring for good
• b2174d0 Don't refresh on external index or work tree changes in case the repository is very big, this could lead to unnecessary loading times as we don't really show index/worktree changes except the little grey status text at the start and this is acceptable given we're talking about external changes only
• 9bd4fc7 Small visual bug: don't paint dotted vertical branch connection lines on top of / connecting to horizontal vis lines ____

• 4ec22f1 Allow showing the interface in a side bar ("view") instead of as a tab ("editor") with new option git-log--graph.position (#11)
• 4ec22f1 New option git-log--graph.hide-quick-branch-tips should you dislike the dotted branch lines at the top
• ee797d7 Commit details: show file name before path (#8)
• a5cfa38 Detect new repos automatically as they are added, detect repos nested deeper than three folders, by depending on the (built-in) vscode.git extension
• a8c5397 Fix actions for branch pull/push: Now the remote is specified automatically and new options were added (the same as for merge)
• a5cfa38 Fixes detection of working tree changes or head moves e.g. on commit --amend (#9)
• 07a3b80 Auto-focus the command input in arg-less commands. In arg commands, args were already focussed. Now, it should always be possible to quick execute a command window by pressing return.
• 135f1fd Prevent multiple context menus at the same time (#10)
• 68bfb81 Options reordering
• a5cfa38 Add new verbose-logging option for message logging
• a5cfa38 Add new output channel for dedicated log output

• 2912c4a Keep extension open on vscode restart - so just like any other "editor" (tab), it will keep its position, pin status etc. Not the scroll position within the view though, as it doesn't seem like a good idea (?)
• 0ab1161 Fix merging a remote branch: Falsely tried to merge the local counterpart instead
• d030697 Improve scroll snapping so it's less annoying (#7)
• 1d020d5 Make scroll snapping optional with new option git-log--graph.disable-scroll-snapping (#7)
• a7167ed Refresh main view on external changes, most notably when doing commits
• 9d09389 Force single instance: Switches to previously opened instance when attempting to open twice
• a91d226 Make selected commit side bar's hash selectable again
• 199da81 Start up slightly later to not slow initial vscode startup down
• 7d8214b Fix extension crash when folder loading took too long, and increase timeout for it from 200 to 2000ms
• da969db Folder detection fallback for when initial folder scan took too long (>2s)
• 09211a0 Fix error message prompt on git log error

• 3024d97 Add status bar shortcut (#5), so now you can also click on the Git Log menu instead of running the command.
• bbbaa8f Fix diff view (was the wrong way left/right)
• a60712e Fix checkout of remote branches. Now just checks out the local branch name instead which in modern Git actually creates a new local tracking branch beforehand named after the remote one if it didn't exist. In other words, checkout origin/main now does a checkout main.
• ed873f4 Fix branch logic (coloring, searching etc) for when more than one branch is connected to a single commit
• 73d086d Fix closing the Selected Commit view by pressing the X button
• 12d73e0 Show loading animation while immediate actions load. So for example when you click "Fetch", you'll now see that something is happening when your network is slow and it's not possible to click it again while doing so.
• 9ad180b Move ref tags like branch tips a bit closer to their respective commit circle
• 883edd0 Bundle extension js with esbuild. This reduces final bundle size by about 80% (as it was in prior updates) as node_modules aren't shipped anymore

• Fix extension startup

• bff9e5c Windows support added thanks to @iamfraggle #4 🎉 (this was part of 0.0.5 already but not in changelog before)
• 6a9b422 New SVG-based graph visualization and large interface and style overhaul. Tell me if you miss the previous one, we can make stuff configurable if necessary. Sorry for breaking your work flow, but this should be the last major UI/UX update forever.
• 0a66679 Make branch and commit actions available via context menu too (right click)
• cda96c2 Add folder selection dropdown
• fb04477 Allow selecting multiple commits at once and add multi-commit actions
• b27a345 Show selected-commit (right bar) only when a commit was clicked, and option to close by clicking either the X button or again on the same commit or by pressing Escape
• e0f1efe Show status text when not scrolled down
• 1a8f4a7 Stable colors for master, main, development, develop, dev, stage and staging
• 7af64c8 Allow for drag/drop from/to all branch tips, regardless of where they are in the UI
• 823c720 Default actions: New: create tag, delete tag, pop stash, delete stash, branch stash move, merge commit, commits cherry-pick, commits revert. Change: pull/push from global to branches, change icons for stash and stash pop, merge branch add options --no-ff and --squash. New section: Tags, Commits (plural)
• 32a68b7 Make vscode config extend the default actions (global, branch etc.) instead of overwriting - so it's not necessary anymore to replicate all of them if you want to add a new one. Editing/removing default ones is not possible anymore now, this would require a new setting - seems pretty pointless though. You'll have to update your actions if this affects you.
• ade3b4b New setting for configurable graph width, by default now auto calculated width
• ade3b4b Detection of config change updates the UI immediately
• 9f5ebe2 Accept graph lines that do not end on a space
• c084983 Show "Loading..." while initialization
• 5724ab9 Hide the 'refs/stash' branch, it's useless
• 84a8949 Scroll to selected commit scroll pos by clicking the hash
• a2cc721 Show tag details (body) in selected commit view
• 9d49608 Base stash actions on STASH_NAME instead of COMMIT_HASH. You'll have to update your actions if this affects you
• cff03a1 Remove accidental permanent -u in git stash
• 7c55a51 Add search instructions if selected
• a0c61ca Fix git option migration bug
• 22419cb Make date/author-date/topo order a default option in git log
• 2593ecc Change magic word in log action from VSCode and stash_refs to {EXT_FORMAT} and {STASH_REFS}. You will need to reset and save your git log configuration if you have changed it.
• 03d5978 Git input: auto focus first param input

• 9a2c177 Use vscode-codicons instead of unicode icons (#3)
• 9ca9296 Add default push and pull actions
• cbbd17c Add git rebase --abort to the abort action
• 9a821df Fix git reset args

• 1496dac Many style improvements
• 1496dac Filter now includes branch name of commit

• 8f9dfd4 Add drag/drop for branches. These actions are also configurable. By default there's merge and rebase.
• 90531ce Highlight the HEAD branch all the time
• 59b478d When scrolling to branch tip, also select the respective commit
• 8434cc4 In stash commits, show untracked change files too
• 836debd Add git reset --merge to the abort default action
• 8c55bc2 Enforce/overwrite dark theme on everything. Native dark/light theme support would be better, but the easiest way forward to fix any remaining color issues.
• 32e211a Make git conflict message detection locale independent (hopefully)
• 667fa11 Make the " (HEAD)" part clickable
• c861a8b Add a thin line below the nav bar in main view
• 25a54bf Action configuration: Apply replacements to title and description also

• ac6ceee Set icon

Michael Hutchison's extension is awesome - if you haven't yet, I highly recommend checking it out. It has more features, is much more stable and a generally well thought-out and documented Open Source project.

But there are drawbacks:

1. It does not allow redistribution or publishing derivative works.. This means that for every feature request, we need to wait for mhutchie to merge it himself and no forks can be published on the marketplace.
2. It's a rather complex piece of software for its purpose (~20,000 lines of TS code (LOC) plus another 20,000 for tests) and modifications of any kind almost always require substantial effort.
3. There are 49 open issues tagged as feature request
4. Important features such as sticky header or customizable git log arguments are missing
5. There has been almost no activity for over a year now. Under normal circumstances, this is of course totally fine. However, in a project that by License depends on a sole maintainer and disallows forks, this is - in my opinion - at least problematic, given its popularity.

This very extension, phil294/git-log--graph, on the other hand:

1. Is MIT-licensed which is a free (FOSS) license
2. Takes a very minimalist approach in its codebase: I wrote a mere 1,300 lines in total for it (no fork). Now obviously, LOC is a stupid measurement for almost anything, but it does say something about the complexity nonetheless. For example, implementing querying git for commit body and showing it in details view was a change consisting of six LOC
3. All relevant logic is customizable by design
4. Is built with the help of a web framework (Vue.js)

I hope I'm not coming across like an ass here; again, mhutchie/vscode-git-graph is really good, but I think it sets its priorities wrong, especially in the fast-paced ecosystem that is Javascript development.

Please open issues for feature requests, many can likely be quickly implemented. If you want to code for yourself, have a look into CONTRIBUTING.md where the architecture is explained in more detail.