Tools & Extensions¶

You can, of course, perform your entire Git workflow using the Git CLI in your Terminal. In fact, I heavily recommend at least understanding, and performing, the basic Git workflow using the CLI at least once. This will help you build some familiarity and muscle memory.

I still use the CLI for some Git operations on a daily basis. A prime example is interactive rebasing. The CLI provides a fine-grained amount of control that most tools and extensions with a UI do not provide.

Nevertheless, manually staging every single change, and constantly consulting your git log and git reflog in the CLI can be tedious and exhausting. Luckily, there are tools and extensions available that will make your life a lot easier. I will list some here.

Git Graph¶

This extension is my very favourite and, in my opinion, an absolute must-have for everybody working with Git repositories using Visual Studio Code.

It provides a tree-based visualisation of your entire repository. Furthermore, it provides options for easily checking out, creating branches, merging branches, cherry-picking, etc. from within the UI.

GitLens¶

This extension is quite possibly capable of doing everything Git-related from within Visual Studio Code.

Unfortunately, the full feature set is for paying users only, so I cannot comment on the full user experience. However, I am quite sure this extension would enable you to forget about the Git CLI entirely and handle every operation through the extension's UI instead.

GitHub Pull Requests and Issues¶

This extension provides an interface to manage issues and pull requests from within Visual Studio Code.