Last updated: July 2025
Welcome to the GitLens Support Documentation site!
GitLens is the #1 most downloaded Visual Studio Code Git extension that supercharges your developer workflows. You can download GitLens from the VS Code marketplace:
GitLens is known for its blame, hover, and annotations, but there’s much more to the extension. Users are leveraging its rich features to increase their developer productivity, which you can learn more about in the popular workflows below.
Interactive Code History
Understanding your repository’s history is easier with GitLens. Whether you’re navigating complex branches or reviewing past changes, GitLens offers intuitive tools to reveal who changed what and why.
View the Commit Graph
The Commit Graph provides an interactive visual history of your branches and commits. It helps you:
- Follow the development of features and bug fixes over time
- Quickly search and jump to specific commits or branches
- Understand commit context through messages and structure
To open the Commit Graph:
- Open the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+PorCmd+Shift+P) and run GitLens: Show Commit Graph View, or - Click the Commit Graph icon in the sidebar
Open the Commit Graph in GitLens
Use GitLens Inspect
GitLens Inspect helps you dive deeper into a specific commit. It shows:
- Modified files and changed lines
- Related Jira issues or pull requests via autolinks
- File or line history for better context
To open Inspect View:
- Right-click any commit and select Inspect Details
Open the Inspect View in GitLens
Explore Inline Blame and Hovers
Inline Blame reveals who last modified each line and why. Hover over any line to:
- View commit details
- Navigate to the previous revision
- Open the associated pull request
- See the commit in the Commit Graph
These insights help you trace decisions and collaborate more effectively.
Accelerate PR Reviews
Manually switching between browser tabs, emails, and PR tools can interrupt your development flow. GitLens helps you stay focused in Visual Studio Code by organizing pull request tasks and supporting multiple workspaces with worktrees.
Launchpad PRO
This feature is only available for Pro subscription tiers or higher.
Launchpad provides a centralized view of your pull requests. You can:
- Connect your GitHub Integration
- View PRs by action status: needs review, follow-up, blocked, draft, and more
- Open pull requests in a new worktree or switch branches directly
To access Launchpad:
- Open the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+PorCmd+Shift+P) and run GitLens: Open Launchpad
Worktrees
The Community plan supports only public and local repositories.
Worktrees let you check out multiple branches at once without stashing or committing changes in progress. This allows you to:
- Review pull requests without leaving your current work
- Keep separate working directories for isolated tasks
- Open a worktree and inspect file diffs, commit history, and changed files directly from the Pull Request sidebar
To open Worktree View:
Open the Worktree View in GitLens
Streamline Team Collaboration
GitLens enables flexible collaboration without needing to commit or push unfinished code. Use Cloud Patches to share changes privately and Code Suggest to offer improvements across a pull request—even for unmodified files.
Cloud Patches PRO
This feature is only available for Pro subscription tiers or higher.
Cloud Patches are sharable Git patches that can be applied across your GitKraken organization:
- Make and save changes to any file
- Open the Command Palette and run GitLens: Share as Cloud Patch…
- Select collaborators to notify via the Cloud Patch sidebar
Open the Cloud Patches View in GitLens
Code Suggest PRO
This feature is only available for Pro subscription tiers or higher.
Suggest code edits to any file—even those not changed in the original PR:
- Check out a branch with an open pull request
- Make and save your proposed changes
- Open the Command Palette and run GitLens: Show Inspect View, then choose Suggest Changes for PR
The pull request owner can apply, modify, and commit these suggestions to streamline reviews and collaboration.
Connect GitLens to External Services
Boost your productivity by integrating GitLens with platforms like GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Bitbucket, Jira, and Trello. Reduce context switching and bring external issue tracking directly into your Git workflows.
Integrations
Connect GitLens to your code host and issue tracker to:
- Sync and manage repositories inside Launchpad
- Automatically show pull requests and issues related to your branch
- Avoid switching between your editor and browser
To set up an integration, go to Settings > Integrations or visit the GitLens Integrations Settings.
Autolinks
Autolinks let you automatically link external issues—like Jira tickets or Trello cards—directly in commit messages, file annotations, and code lenses.
You can also create custom autolinks by defining pattern-matching rules for external references like Zendesk or Linear. This helps keep your codebase traceable and well-documented.
Other Resources
- 📌 GitHub Repository — Submit feature requests or bug reports
- 💬 Join GitKraken Slack — Connect with the GitLens community
- 🛠️ Contact Support — Paid users can get direct help from our support team
